Information Technology and Educational Management in the Knowledge Society

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ANDEDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT IN THEKNOWLEDGE SOCIETY

IFIP – The International Federation for Information Processing

IFIP was founded in 1960 under the auspices of UNESCO, following the First WorldComputer Congress held in Paris the previous year. An umbrella organization forsocieties working in information processing, IFIP’s aim is two-fold: to supportinformation processing within its member countries and to encourage technology transferto developing nations. As its mission statement clearly states,

IFIP’s mission is to be the leading, truly international, apoliticalorganization which encourages and assists in the development,exploitation and application of information technology for the benefitof all people.

IFIP is a non-profitmaking organization, run almost solely by 2500 volunteers. It operatesthrough a number of technical committees, which organize events and publications.IFIP’s events range from an international congress to local seminars, but the mostimportant are:

The IFIP World Computer Congress, held every second year;Open conferences;Working conferences.

The flagship event is the IFIP World Computer Congress, at which both invited andcontributed papers are presented. Contributed papers are rigorously refereed and therejection rate is high.

As with the Congress, participation in the open conferences is open to all and papers maybe invited or submitted. Again, submitted papers are stringently refereed.

The working conferences are structured differently. They are usually run by a workinggroup and attendance is small and by invitation only. Their purpose is to create anatmosphere conducive to innovation and development. Refereeing is less rigorous andpapers are subjected to extensive group discussion.

Publications arising from IFIP events vary. The papers presented at the IFIP WorldComputer Congress and at open conferences are published as conference proceedings,while the results of the working conferences are often published as collections of selectedand edited papers.

Any national society whose primary activity is in information may apply to become a fullmember of IFIP, although full membership is restricted to one society per country. Fullmembers are entitled to vote at the annual General Assembly, National societiespreferring a less committed involvement may apply for associate or correspondingmembership. Associate members enjoy the same benefits as full members, but withoutvoting rights. Corresponding members are not represented in IFIP bodies. Affiliatedmembership is open to non-national societies, and individual and honorary membershipschemes are also offered.

INFORMATIONTECHNOLOGY ANDEDUCATIONALMANAGEMENT IN THEKNOWLEDGE SOCIETY

IFIP TC3 WG3.7, 6th International Working Conference onInformation Technology in Educational Management (ITEM)July 11–15, 2004, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

Edited by

Arthur TatnallVictoria UniversityAustralia

Javier OsorioCampus Universitario de TafiraSpain

Adrie VisscherUniversity of TwenteThe Netherlands

Springer

eBook ISBN: 0-387-24045-4Print ISBN: 0-387-24044-6

Print ©2005 by International Federation for Information Processing.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Data, Information and Questions of Pupil ProgressFood for Thought, Challenges for ICT

Leonard R. Newton

Primary School Teachers’ Use of ICT for Administration andManagement

Ian Selwood

Reaping ITEM BenefitsA Link Between Staff ICT Access, Ability and Use

Christopher O’Mahony

Managing Accountability Innovations in Distance-LearningPrograms

Connie L. Fulmer

Extending the ClassroomThe Virtual Integrated Teaching and Learning Environment (VITLE)

Alex C.W. Fung and Jenilyn Ledesma

Systemic Reform Efforts in the U.SRole of Information Technology in Fostering Collaboration within New

PartnershipsChristopher A. Thorn

Developing an Integrated School Information SystemGreg Baker

Computerised School Information Systems Usage in an EmergingCountry - Uganda

Ronald Bisaso and Adrie Visscher

ITEM System Usage in the Ministry of Education in BotswanaOmponoye C. Kereteletse and Ian Selwood

Data Quality in Educational Systems for Decision MakersGeoff Sandy and Bill Davey

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1

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37

47

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67

81

99

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Planning as the Base for Efficient Management of ICTThe case of ULPGC

Jacques Bulchand, Jorge Rodríguez

Educational Management Systems and the Tutorial ClassBill Davey and Arthur Tatnall

Quality Management in Virtual EducationManagement Indicators for Continuous Improvement

Lucía Melián, Víctor Padrón and Tomás F. Espino

Emerging Knowledge Networks as a Background For EducationalManagement

Learning from Information IndustriesMikko J. Ruohonen

A Collaborative Environment for New Learning Ecology and E-Pedagogy

Toshio Okamoto and Mizue Kayama

Information Society in ExtremaduraTowards a Future of Solidarity and More Freedom

Jose A. Diaz

Basic Architecture for ICT Integration in the Canary EducationalSystem

Pedro Baquero, Alfredo Santana, Ignacio Zubiria, Manuel Prieto

To Adopt or Not to Adopt Computer-Based School ManagementSystems?

An ITEM Research AgendaArthur Tatnall

ITEM Focus Group Reports

Future Directions in ITEM ResearchArthur Tatnall and Bill Davey

Managing Distance and Lifelong LearningConnie L. Fulmer

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Preface

The Gran Canaria (Las Palmas) ITEM conference was a special one as itwas exactly ten years since the first ITEM conference (although we did notthen use that acronym) was held. In 1994 Ben-Zion Barta and Yaffa Gevfrom the Ministry of Education in Israel were aware of the growing need toshare information, and managed to obtain funding to organize a conferenceon the utilization of information technology for the administration andmanagement of schools. Scientists, system developers, implementers andothers active in this area travelled to Jerusalem where these practitioners andexperts from around the globe were brought together for the first time toshare their knowledge.

The paper presentations and workshops were so successful that it wasdecided to organize an ITEM conference every two years. (Yaffa Gevinvented the ITEM acronym which stands for Information Technology inEducational Management.) Since Jerusalem, these conferences have beenheld respectively in Hong Kong (1996), Maine (USA, 1998), Auckland(New Zealand, 2000), and in Helsinki (2002). The next conference will beheld in Hamamatsu in Japan in 2006.

Quite a few people who attended the Jerusalem conference are still activein ITEM and also attended the Las Palmas conference. Since 1994 we havealso welcomed several new ITEM members, and some delegates attended anITEM conference in Las Palmas for the first time.

The conferences have engendered a spirit of co-operation amongst peoplearound the world: they have resulted in papers and special issues forscientific journals, obtained research funding, carried out research projectsand organized research fellowships. As a group we successfully applied in1996 for the establishment of IFIP (International Federation for InformationProcessing) Working Group 3.7 to promote the effective and efficient use ofinformation technology for the management of educational institutions in allrespects. (For more information, please refer to http://ifip-item.hkbu.edu.hk).International co-operation and exchange of information on the state of the artof the research, development, and implementation of ITEM will help us toachieve this overall goal.

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This book is the result of an international call for papers addressing thechallenges faced by the information technology and educationalmanagement (ITEM) field in a society where knowledge management isbecoming a major issue both in educational and business systems. As a resulta number of papers were received. Each paper was peer reviewed by twoacknowledged ITEM specialists who provided useful feedback to authors ofaccepted papers. These papers were presented at an International WorkingConference in Grand Canaria, and were subject to discussion and criticism.After the conference a selection was made of papers for inclusion in thisbook, and the authors were give the opportunity to modify their workaccording to feedback obtained at the conference. This publication is the endresult of this process.

The papers in this book fall broadly into five main categories: School-based educational issues regarding ITEM; case studies regarding ITEM usein schools; issues relating to ITEM in higher education; research, technologyand business issues; and reports of the focus group meetings held at theconference.

The first group of papers is concerned with ITEM issues in schools. Thefirst paper by Len Newton questions the adequacies of school ITEM systemsin meeting the needs of teachers and pupils in relation to assessment forlearning purposes, and suggests further challenges for the design anddevelopment of these systems for handling useful assessment information.Newton notes that in addition to administrative data, we need information toinform pedagogical processes including data that will embrace pupils’learning skills. Ian Selwood follows with a paper reporting on the findings ofa baseline study on Primary School Teachers’ use of ICT for administrationand management in England. He notes that even though primary teachers aregenerally positive about ICT and its ability to support their administrativeand management duties, the findings point to low levels of use of ICT foradministration and management. Chris O’Mahony then reports on a surveyof ICT access, ability and use conducted among 25 schools in England andWales in 2002/03. The survey results indicated that access to ICT resourceswas high both at school and at home, and staff reported overall satisfactionwith their ICT abilities across core applications, whilst calling for moretraining in ‘advanced’ applications. The next paper, by Connie Fulmer,discusses accountability in distance-learning programs in the US. She pointsout that accountability is a complex process in any organizational learningexperience, particularly in distance-learning environments. The paperdescribes online-accountability innovations used in distance-learningprograms and how these online tools help students provide evidence of theirreadiness for educational-leadership positions. Alex Fung and JenilynLedesma then describe an interactive, web-based, real-time platform fordelivery of teaching and learning in Hong Kong when classes were

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suspended during the SARS outbreak in 2003. Finally in this group ofpapers, Chris Thorn discusses systemic reform efforts in the US in relation todata-based decision making and decision support systems. He describes thelatest generation of collaborative systems that support knowledge exchangeand expertise location services and argues that the human capacity toevaluate programs, curricula, and other reform efforts has not kept pace withtechnological developments.

In the next group of papers several authors describe specific school-basedexamples of ITEM systems. Greg Baker describes some of the issuesinvolved in developing an integrated information system that contributes tothe management of an Australian independent school. He demonstrates thatit is possible and feasible to develop an information system that meets boththe needs of staff and is customized for the users’ requirements. RonaldBisaso and Adrie Visscher then outline an exploratory study on the usage ofcomputerised school information systems in the administration andmanagement of the biggest secondary schools in Uganda. OmponoyeKereteletse and Ian Selwood next describe a study that evaluated systemusage of the computerised information system implemented by the Ministryof Education in Botswana.

University ITEM systems are then the subject of a set of papers. GeoffSandy and Bill Davey begin by considering issues of data quality for ITEMsystems used in higher education decision making. Jacques Bulchand andJorge Rodríguez then outline the process that the University of Las Palmasde Gran Canaria went through in planning, building and implementing a newITEM system. In the paper they describe a methodology composed of ninesteps that involves the whole university community and not just IS/ICTtechnicians. In the next paper Bill Davey and Arthur Tatnall argue foruniversity ITEM systems that provide useful information to teachingacademics as well as to university administrators, and lament the lack ofsuch system in most universities. Lucía Melián, Víctor Padrón and TomásEspino next consider issues of quality management in virtual universities.

The next papers cover a wide range of issues relating to research,technology and business issues. To begin, a paper by Mikko Ruohonen looksat knowledge networks for educational management and lessons that mightbe learned from industry. Toshio Okamoto and Mizue Kayama next proposeand discuss functionality required for collaborative learning and introduce aplatform for a collaborative learning environment called RAPSODY-EX(REX) that they have developed. A paper from Jose Diaz follows describinga strategic project for an information society in the Spanish Region ofExtremadura. An aspect of this project was development of GNU/LinEx andassociated Free Software, and the paper elaborates the advantages of thisFree Software. In similar vein, Pedro Baquero, Alfredo Santana, IgnacioZubiria and Manuel Prieto then outline a global solution that covers the ICT

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infrastructure necessities of an educational community in the Canary Islands.This consists of a basic technological architecture of: IndividualizedNetworks of Schools, the Integrated Broadband Network and theManagement System. This study has been framed inside MEDUSA project.In the last paper, Arthur Tatnall explores ITEM as an innovation and arguesfor research, framed by innovation theory, into why some schools, regionsand countries adopt ITEM more fully and in different ways than others.

The final papers report on the discussions that took place in the focusgroups that met during the conference. Firstly Arthur Tatnall and Bill Daveydescribe the discussions of a group that was considering future directions initem research. Connie Fulmer next details the discussions of the secondgroup on issues in the management of distance and lifelong learning.

We hope and trust that these papers will prove interesting and useful toother researchers and to educators with an interest in InformationTechnology in Educational Management.

Javier OsorioAdrie VisscherArthur Tatnall

Data, Information and Questions of Pupil ProgressFood for Thought, Challenges for ICT

Leonard R. NewtonSchool of Education, University of Nottingham [email protected]

Abstract: Developments in management information systems (MIS) have been wellsuited to the collation, storage and dissemination of summative assessmentdata and have reached a point where data can now be used for comparativepurposes at national, local and individual pupil levels. Trends in assessment inEnglish secondary schools have focused primarily on its use for purposes ofmonitoring and accountability. Recently, there has been a resurgence ininterest in using assessment data formatively to improve teaching and learning:this poses challenges to designers and users of MIS. This paper considersliterature in educational assessment, and current trends and rhetoric inassessment practices and purposes, to identify the changing needs of potentialusers of MIS for learning purposes. The adequacies of MIS in meeting theneeds of teachers and pupils in the context of assessment for learning purposesare then considered. From this discussion further challenges for the design anddevelopment of MIS for handling useful assessment information are identified.

Key words: Assessment, data, learning.

1 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

Advances in management information systems (MIS) in recent years nowmean that many schools are ‘data rich’. In particular, there have beensignificant developments in MISs to support the administration of schools inthe context of increasing school management autonomy. A large-scale studyof the use of one MIS in English schools showed that the predominantlyused MIS had positive effects in some key aspects of school administration(Visscher et al. 2003). But Visscher et al. also reflected on the dominance ofMIS usage for ‘clerical’ activities rather than strategic uses; they argued for

2 Leonard R. Newton

the need to find ways to promote more strategic use of MIS to support policymaking (Visscher et al. 2003, p 364). Conceptions of the educational uses ofMIS have also begun to embrace their potential use in the classroom, but thisis problematic (Newton and Visscher 2003).

The dominance of administrative uses of MIS in English schools isarguably a reflection of developments in information technology and theconcomitant raised awareness, in software designers and users, of thepotential of these technological advances to fulfil certain administrativefunctions. But it is also a reflection of contexts in which MISs have evolvedwhere localised management has driven schools to find ways of using ICT tosupport administration. Therefore developments in MIS software and its usecan be viewed as largely needs-led.

In the contemporary context, there is a strong focus on raisingeducational standards and so it is appropriate to ask what MISs can do tosupport this endeavour, which, after all, is the core purpose of educationalinstitutions. In the rhetoric of the so-called ‘standards debate’ it is all tooeasy to become focused on whole-school data and notions of schoolperformance at the possible expense of recognising that performance datarepresent the achievements of individual pupils and their teachers. Raisingeducational standards means raising the attainment of the individual pupilswho are the members of classes, cohorts and whole-school pupilpopulations. For teachers, the contribution that they make to raiseeducational standards is based upon their work with the individuals andgroups of pupils they teach. For this reason a key question in the use of MISto support teachers’ work is whether (and how) the data made availablethrough these systems can be used to support teachers’ decisions aboutteaching and learning, and how MISs might be developed to manage newkinds of useful data. Thus the link between pupil performance data andpedagogy needs to be established by exploring how data can be used asinformation to support the teaching-learning process.

2 DATA, DATA EVERYWHERE...

The approaches to assessment that have been adopted in recent years inEnglish schools have focused primarily on monitoring pupils’ attainment incore national curriculum subjects. The outcomes of these assessmentpractices have provided summative data on pupils’ attainment against so-called ‘level descriptors’ in these subjects. Prior to the inception of thenational curriculum in England and Wales, there had been many years’ workon projects that had explored and developed the use of assessmentinformation for the purpose of directly supporting learning (Black and

Data, Information and Questions of Pupil Progress 3

Wiliam, 2003). These developments necessarily placed high value onteachers’ knowledge of their pupils’ progress and conceptualised aspects ofthe assessment process as instrumental in fostering pupils’ learning. Despiteinitially embracing the principles of these so-called ‘formative’ assessmentpractices and the role of teachers in the assessment process, successive UKgovernments, in the 1980s and 1990s, allowed these aspects of assessment tofade (Black and Wiliam ibid.). So, for a significant period of time, theassessment agenda in England and Wales has been driven by the need toserve the purposes of monitoring and accountability, rather than the use ofassessment for learning purposes. However, recently there has been aresurgence of interest in the role of assessment for learning purposes,especially in middle years education during key stage 3 (ages 11 to 14years). I will return to this issue later in the discussion.

In English schools, the use of data is seen as providing a powerful meansof raising pupil achievement and driving forward the agenda to achieve‘World Class’ education. For example, it has been suggested that ‘regularenquiry and the use of data to inform teaching and learning’ are key featuresof school leadership to support high levels of achievement (SpecialistSchools Trust 2003a, page 5). Moreover, in the English state school system,the use over many years of statutory Standard Attainment Tests or ‘SATs’ atthe end of key stages of education (at ages 7, 11 and 14 years) means thatthere is an increasing mass of data on pupil performance. Of course,information technology provides a valuable means of storing andinterrogating this information, and communicating it more widely. Notably,developments in technology have led at least one influential educationalbody in England to articulate a vision of “Teachers using ICT as an aid tomanage pupils’ learning, every pupil with an individual education plan,accessible to pupils and parents on line.” (Technology Colleges Trust, 2000p31). The availability of individual performance data signals its potential tosupport a more individualised approach to teaching but the nature of anyrelationships between performance data and the selection andimplementation of learning and teaching approaches need to be examined.

Since the late 1980s successive UK governments have supported theestablishment of schools designated with specialist status, including‘Technology College status’ where there is an expectation of strongemphases on the use of ICT to support teaching and pupil learning. Theachievements of specialist schools have proved to be influential ineducational policy. The current UK government has signalled its intention toextend the network of specialist schools in England, albeit in a reformedsystem (DfES 2003) and ICT figures prominently in these plans. Oneambition is that ICT will help schools to develop ‘more individualisedlearning and assessment programmes for every child’ (ibid. p47). This isfurther evidence of the contemporary focus on individual pupil progress and

4 Leonard R. Newton

the role of ICT, and ways need to be found to enable teachers to respond tothis drive.

In a recent lecture, the UK Secretary of State for Education and Skillsdescribed a data management initiative known ‘Pupil Achievement Tracker’or ‘PAT’ system and its potential to provide individualised and comparativepupil performance data (Specialist Schools Trust, 2003b). This developmenthas become possible since, in England, pupils have been allocated uniquereference numbers that allow their progress to be tracked through theeducation system. It is argued that pupils’ performance on national tests atkey stage 2 (taken at age 11 years) are strong predictors of their futureperformance. Thus developments in the management of assessment data inEngland mean that data is now available at the international, national,school, group and individual levels. With the PAT system, it is envisagedthat teachers will be able to use comparative data to identify under-performing pupils and to better tailor their teaching to the needs ofindividual pupils. However, the question remains of what precisely is therelationship between data and individualised pupil action planning? Toindicate to a pupil that they have achieved level 5 in a key stage 3 test andthat their target grade should be level 7 tells the pupil nothing of how toreach the target grade.

3 DATA RICH BUT INFORMATION POOR?

Performance data collected from SATs is just one source of datacurrently available in English secondary schools. There is by no meansuniversal agreement that the SAT system provides a reliable or valid meansof assessing pupil progress. Indeed, in 2003, the devolved government inWales launched a review of testing and league tables to explore whether theyshould be abandoned in favour of teacher assessment in key stage 2 (age 11and key stage 3 (age 14). In its final report (Daugherty, 2004) there is arecommendation that tests at the end of key stage 3 should be phased outover time. Nevertheless, national testing using SATs has remained acornerstone of successive governments’ monitoring and accountabilitymeasures and there are even proposals to extend testing at age fourteen inEngland.

Improvements in whole school attainment are predicated upon theachievements and improvements of individual pupils, as revealed throughthe instruments used for assessment purposes. Taken together, there is now awealth of data available to schools and teachers on their pupils’ currentperformance and indications of their future potential. There is a genuinesense in which schools can be viewed as data rich. However, data only


becomes information when it is interpreted for a particular purpose. It islegitimate to ask the question of whether data of particular kinds isuniversally suited to a range of interpretations. In the context of assessment,it has been argued that summative data may too coarsely grained or ill-timedto support meaningful interpretations for the purposes of guiding individualpupils’ learning (Wiliam and Black, 1996).

3.1 On Assessment and Learning

Improving pupils’ performance is about developing their knowledge,understanding and skills in a range of subject disciplines. It is about pupilsdeveloping their skills as learners and their understandings about how theythink and learn. A key question therefore, is how the wealth of available datacan be used as information to support teachers (and pupils) in makingprogress in these areas. The focus of teacher and pupil action needs to bedirected towards using information to enlighten and develop the processes ofteaching and learning in meaningful ways. In the argument presented here, itis suggested that this link is not currently well made and there isconsiderable ambiguity in the relationships between data, information andthe needs of teachers and learners.

4 KNOWING THAT AND KNOWING HOW

Contemporary ideas about learning have been heavily influenced byconstructivist and social constructivist psychology. These perspectives putpupils at the centre in learning situations; thus in structuring learningactivities for pupils, a key step is to determine what the pupils already knowand understand about the topic to be learned. In constructivist teachingapproaches, it is necessary to make learners’ prior ideas (andmisconceptions) explicit, so that these can be used as the basis for buildingnew understandings that move the learner on. Teachers use a range ofstrategies to probe and elicit pupils’ understanding. These approaches areessentially used for diagnostic purposes in order to help the teacherunderstand the starting points of pupils in a group and to design learningexperiences that will take account of these and address progress. Assessmentcan itself be viewed as a cyclic process (Wiliam and Black, 1996) within theconstructivist paradigm of elicitation, interpretation and action. Feedback tothe learner from the interpretation of data needs to ‘close the gap’ betweenwhat is already known and understood, and the desired knowledge andunderstanding (Wiliam and Black, 1996 p543).

6 Leonard R. Newton

It is interesting to note that the introduction of the national curriculum inEngland and Wales in the late nineteen eighties has been described by Blackand Wiliam (2003, p625) as beginning the “decline of the development informative assessment” practices; so that by 1995, as Black and Wiliam put it:“nothing was left of the advances made in the previous decades” (ibid.,p626). Against this background, where assessment for summative purposeshas dominated the agenda, it is perhaps paradoxical that ‘assessment forlearning’ has become one of the central themes in contemporary Englishsecondary education, in particular during middle years education at KeyStage 3 (age 11-14 years). The supremacy of summative assessment hasbrought with it an undue focus on ‘ends’ as opposed to the means by whichthese ends are achieved. It is possible that current interest in how theprocesses of assessment can link to learning represents a shift in policy.

Assessment for learning (AfL) requires clarity about what is to be learnedand the use of carefully framed targets that will enable pupils to movetowards achieving the learning goals. However, evidence from the EnglishOffice for Standards in Education (Ofsted), quoted by the Specialist SchoolsTrust, (2003b p15) indicates that less that 40% of schools are ‘good or betterat using assessment data to inform teaching and learning practice and schoolimprovement policies’.

Diagnostic assessment is recognised as a feature of good assessmentpractice (Ofsted 2003a p86). At its best, this assessment information can beused formatively, leading to targets for pupil action. There is a significantbody of literature on assessment but of particular importance in the UK andelsewhere, has been the work of Black and Wiliam (1998) on formativeassessment. In formative assessment, pupils can be viewed as partners in theassessment process. Its value for learning lies in the understanding thatpupils gain through the process of assessment. Pupils learn what they need todo in order to improve their knowledge, understanding and skill. But it isabout more than pupils being able to understand just what they need to do; itcan also concern how to achieve it. Thus effective formative assessmentpractices help move pupils forward both in terms of learning content andlearning skills.

A related issue in pupils’ learning skills, is that ‘thinking skills’ areintended to be embedded in national curriculum subjects in England andWales. Space does not permit a detailed discussion of this dimension to pupillearning but in addition to providing explicit opportunities to develop theseskills an important feature of the teaching approach (as with otherconstructivist approaches to learning) is to help pupils to gain metacognitiveinsights into the processes involved in a range of thinking skills and practicein their application in new contexts.


5 ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING

As we have seen, assessment for learning (AfL) is different fromassessment of learning in that its focus is closely linked to the processes ofclassroom learning. At the core of AfL is pupils’ understanding of thepurposes of the learning, their current understanding in relation to what is tobe learned and of how to achieve this new learning (Assessment ReformGroup, ARG 1999). In order to develop AfL strategies in classrooms,teachers need to develop a repertoire of approaches in their teaching thatserve to contextualise expected learning outcomes and to elicit pupils’current understanding through active approaches that engage them andencourage them to take responsibility for their learning (ARG, 2002). InEngland there is a range of support material available to teachers to helpidentify effective teacher behaviours to foster assessment for learning(Qualifications and Curriculum Authority QCA, 2003). Not all these teacherbehaviours are obviously or directly supported by management informationsystems, yet if the potential of ICT to support teachers’ work and pupillearning is to be realised, thought needs to be given as to how the capabilitiesof ICT and the contemporary needs of teachers to handle assessmentinformation can be usefully aligned.

6 GOOD PRACTICE IN ASSESSMENT:IMPLICATIONS FOR MIS

Recent reports from the Ofsted have identified features of goodassessment practice from a group of case study schools (Ofsted 2003b). Ofparticular interest to the present discussion are the following points:

Emphasis on the use of baseline data to monitor and review individualpupils’ progress and to set targetsA holistic approach to monitoring and support that involves subject andpastoral concerns, and encompasses attitudinal and developmentalmatters.Use of efficient and accessible information systems to reduce the burdenon teachers.It is broadly accepted that there is scope for improvement in assessment

practices that support learning. It is clearly the hope of politicians and othersin England that the best practices of formative assessment will be morewidely implemented in schools and that pupils will benefit as a result.However the present use of MIS for management of data appears to supportthis goal in only limited ways.

8 Leonard R. Newton

Many English schools currently make use of the assessment managementtools of MIS to handle summative assessment data. In addition, thegovernment has developed software tools to support diagnosis and analysisof summative data. For example, the PAT system described above and the‘Online autumn package’ which provides data on national curriculumstatutory assessment. In addition, the QCA has developed software to enableteachers and school managers to carry out diagnostic analysis of statutoryand optional tests.

Current management information systems provide efficient ways ofmanaging data in the form of summative test and grade scores. Assummative measures of attainment, these scores represent relatively coarse-grained data. In a narrow sense there is scope for summative assessmentinformation made available through current MISs to be used formatively, forexample in providing information about current achievement and in usingthis to set target minimum grades for pupils to work towards. But coarse-grained information is of limited use in relation to the operational processesthat will help pupils to secure the target grade; nor is it particularly helpful tothe teacher in the nuanced adjustments required in teaching approach.Moreover, the kind of information that supports assessment for learningreflects something of the social and behavioural aspects of learning as wellas knowledge and understanding. In broad terms, information derived forformative assessment purposes needs to focus more on the strategies andactions required of learners for improving their performance. It also needs torelate closely to the context of subject knowledge, understanding and skillsto be learned. This kind of information is much more finely grained thansummative test scores and may require different conceptions of the featuresand functionality of an MIS if the power of ICT is to be harnessed to supportteachers in the classroom.

6.1 Challenges to MIS Designers

So key challenges for MIS to support learning remain. What are theuseful alignments between pedagogy, standards based curricula andassessment? Standards based curricula and assessment can be usefullyaligned to provide summative assessment data. However, pedagogy isconcerned with the processes of teaching and learning and these are onlypartly informed by summative information. We need information of otherkinds to inform pedagogical processes including data that will embracepupils’ learning skills. Systems are needed that will enable qualitative data tobe recorded and managed for developmental purposes. There are questionshere about ownership of and access to such data that need to be addressed. Itwould be valuable for teachers and pupils to make use of a shared repository


of information for the purposes of negotiated personal action planning tosupport pupils’ progress. Such systems are already in use in higher educationwhere students are expected to take significant responsibility for managingtheir own learning. It could be possible to use similar systems with pupils inways that support their fuller involvement in the assessment process and thiswould also support key principles of AfL including helping pupils to developthere skills in self-appraisal (ARG, 2002).

Can the social dimensions of teaching and learning be reconciled withdata? At the level of day to day classroom interaction, it is not easy toconceive of how MIS can directly support the teaching-learning dynamic.Nevertheless periodic reviews with pupils where their achievements andapproaches to learning are foci of discussion could provide opportunities toembrace further principles of AfL and ICT can provide a means of recordingand sharing this information. Performance data are partial reflections ofthese dimensions but they are viewed through the prism of the assessmentinstruments that generate test and grade scores. Can such data be used todrive AfL without the risk of ‘the backwash effect’ of teaching to the test?To achieve this it will be necessary to break the link between formativeassessment processes and statutory assessment requirements if MIS are to beused to support use of qualitative data for learning.

So, what other kinds of data would be useful to teachers? Assessment forlearning focuses on individuals’ achievements as well as attainment. Canuseful systems be designed to provide achievement data for individual pupilsto reflect their progress towards attainment targets taking account of theirdifferent starting points? Can target banks be developed that are closelyaligned to curriculum statements that reflect attainment goals? Can learningskills be identified and used as a stimulus for discussion with pupils aboutnext steps towards learning goals? Can target systems be developed that takeaccount of affective as well as cognitive domains? Can systems be designedthat enable pupils to take ownership of their progress by recording andmanaging target setting processes?

In each of these areas it is possible to think of ways in which ICT couldbe used to achieve these goals. But a key issue rests in the functionality andusability of any software developed for these purposes and whether itsusefulness outweighs any overheads in its use and management. By findinganswers to these questions, it is possible that MIS may reach a new level ofusefulness to teachers in managing pupils’ learning and improving theirprogress.

10 Leonard R. Newton

7 REFERENCES

Assessment Reform Group (ARG) (1999) Assessment for Learning: Beyond the Black Box(University of Cambridge School of Education, 1999). Available athttp://www.assessment-reform-group.org.uk/AssessInsides.pdf [accessed January 21st2004]

Assessment Reform Group (ARG) (2002) assessment for Learning 10 Principles. Available athttp://www.assessment-reform-group.org.uk/principles.html [accessed January 21st 2004]

Black, P. and Wiliam, D. (1998) Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through ClassroomAssessment. King’s College London School of Education. http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/education/publications/blackbox.html [accessed 20/11/2003]

Black, P., and Wiliam, D. (2003). ‘In Praise of Educational Research’: formative assessment.British Educational Research Journal, 29(5), 623-637.

Daugherty (2004) Learning Pathways Through Statutory Assessment: Key Stages 2 and 3.Daugherty Assessment Review Group Final Report. Available athttp://www.learning.wales.gov.uk/pdfs/daugherty/daughety-final-report-e.pdf [accessedJuly 2004]

DfES (2003) A New Specialist System: Transforming Secondary Education, London: DfES[ISBN 1841858951]

Newton, L R and Visscher (2003) ‘Management Systems in the Classroom.’ In Selwood, I.D.,Fung, A.C.W. and O’Mahony, C. D. Management of Education in the Information Age-The Role of ICT. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers [ISBN 1402074301]

Ofsted (2003a) Handbook for inspecting secondary schools, London: Ofsted [HMI 1360]Ofsted (2003b). Good assessment in secondary schools: Office for Standards in Education

(OFSTED).Qualification and Curriculum Authority (QCA) (2003) Characteristics of AfL. Available at

http://www.qca.org.uk/printable.html?url=/ages3-14/afl/296.htm&title=Characteristices ofAfL [accessed 19 January 2004]

Specialist Schools Trust (2003a) World Class Education London: Specialist Schools Trust[ISBN 1873882734]

Specialist Schools Trust (2003b) Pupil-centred learning: using data to improve performance,London: Specialist Schools Trust [ISBN 1873882807]

Technology Colleges Trust (2000) Best Practice in Technology Colleges – a guide to schoolimprovement, London: TC Trust [ISBN 1873882513]

Visscher A., Wild P., Smith D. and Newton L. (2003) Evaluation of the implementation, useand effects of a computerised management information system in English secondaryschools. British Journal of Educational Technology, June, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 357-366(10)

Wiliam, D., and Black, P. (1996). Meanings and Consequences: a basis for distinguishingformative and summative functions of assessment? British Educational Research Journal,22(5), 537-548.

Primary School Teachers’ Use of ICT forAdministration and Management

Ian SelwoodThe University of Birmingham, School of Education, Edgbaston, Birmingham, [email protected]

Abstract: This paper reports on the findings of the baseline study “ICT Test Bed Project”in England as they relate to Primary School Teachers’ use of ICT foradministration and management. Data is presented that illustrates primaryteachers’ attitudes towards ICT and its use for administration andmanagement; their access to ICT and satisfaction with this; their views ontraining and the type of training they have received; and their use of ICT foradministration and management including frequency of use, and factors thatinfluence their use. Even though primary teachers are generally positive aboutICT and its ability to support their administrative and management duties, thefindings point to low levels of use of ICT for administration and management.Reasons for this lack of use relate to lack of quality training and theavailability of time and quality ICT resources.

Key words: ICT, Primary Teachers, Administration, Management, Workload.

1 INTRODUCTION

The publication “Information and communications technology in UKschools: An independent enquiry” by the Stevenson Committee (1997)highlighted not only the potential uses of ICT in UK schools but concludedthat the state of ICT in UK schools was primitive and not improving and thatit should be a national priority to increase the use of ICT in schools. Since1997 there have been several government initiatives in the UK to encouragethe use of ICT in schools, notably the implementation of the National Gridfor Learning (NGfL) (DfEE, 1997); the lottery funded (New OpportunitiesFund (NOF)) scheme to provide ICT training or re-training for all 500,000

12 Ian Selwood

practising teachers and school librarians (TTA, 1998); and CurriculumOnline (DfES, 2002). The “ICT Test Bed Project” (DfES, 2003) is one of theUK governments’ latest ICT initiatives and combines large-scaleinvestments in ICT hardware, software and support, with a commitment toprofessional development and collaboration between participating schoolsand colleges, over a four-year period. The emphasis of the project is placedupon: “Using ICT to:

Raise standards and performance, concentrating in particular on schoolimprovement and raising the quality of teaching and learning.Enable more effective leadership and management in schools.Help teachers to concentrate their time on core task of teaching.Enable more effective collaboration between schools and with theirlocal colleges.Provide wider learning opportunities to pupils, their families and thewider community in a home environment.” (DfES, 2003)

To enable progress to be monitored, a baseline study of the 28 schoolsinvolved in the project (5 secondary, 1 special school and 22 primaryschools) was undertaken by a team from The University of Birmingham ledby Professor Hywel Thomas. The schools in the “Test Bed Project” werechosen by the DfES after LEAs had submitted details of clusters of schoolsthat they felt could work effectively together, to allow the exploration of thepotential of ICT to support greater collaboration between schools.

The baseline study took place between October and November2002 when all of the “Test Bed Schools” were visited, and all teaching andsupport staff completed a very comprehensive questionnaire, which achieveda response rate of 91%. Additionally, during the school visits a cross-sectionof staff (Headteacher, member of Senior Management team, middlemanager, class teachers and teaching assistants) were interviewed. A greatdeal of the data collected relates to the use of ICT in supporting teaching andlearning. However, this paper presents only the data that relates to primaryteachers’ use of ICT for administrative and management purposes. Researchon teacher workloads is extensive but there is relatively little on the role ICTcan play in reducing teacher workloads (Becta, 2003), and there is also verylittle research on the use of ITEM by classroom teachers (Selwood, Smithand Wishart, 2001). The results presented in this paper may, in some smallway, redress this situation by illustrating the current position in EnglishPrimary Schools.

Primary School Teachers’ Use of ICT for Administration andManagement2 RESULTS

13

2.1 Primary Teachers’ Views on the Use of ICT

Attitudes towards ICT are important if its potential is to be utilised. Table1 shows the opinions of primary teachers with respect to their use of ICT andthe use of ICT in their schools. Confidence in using ICT is relatively highwith about two thirds of teachers agreeing with the statement ‘I find it easyto use ICT’ and this corresponds with one-third agreeing with the statementthat ICT can make them nervous. Only 13% of teachers felt ICT made workless enjoyable and 5% that working with ICT was boring. Whereas 79% feltICT made work more enjoyable. With respect to primary teachers’ views onthe effect of ICT on workload, over two-thirds felt that ICT will reduce theirworkload and 71% that ICT made them more productive. However, only46% felt that they actually worked better when they work with ICT. Thisapparent contradiction may relate to primary teachers’ perception that theyneed more training (see 2.4). The final two rows of Table 1 differ from theothers in that they show primary teachers perceptions of how the school usesICT rather than how they personally use ICT. Just over half (53%) felt thatICT was used effectively by their school to manage resources, but only 39%felt that ICT was used effectively by their school in decision making.

1 In all tables VS.Dis=Very Strongly Disagree, S.Dis=Strongly Disagree, Dis=Disagree,S.Agree=Strongly Agree, VS.Agree=Very Strongly Agree

14 Ian Selwood

2.2 Access to ICT

If teachers are to use ICT for administration and management then accessto quality hardware and software are important factors. It is also apparentthat with the very limited non-contact time that primary teachers have in theUK, that access to ICT outside of their school is also an important factor.Teachers were therefore asked about where they could access computers;their satisfaction with the quality of the hardware and software in theirschool; and what provision their schools made in supporting their access toICT in their homes.

2.2.1 Where can primary teachers use a computer?

Analysing the places where teachers can readily access computers it isapparent that the main place of use “whenever they want” or where they can“usually” get access is at home (84%) and at school (97%). Use ofcomputers at other locations is relatively rare with the public library beingthe next highest and scoring only 24%. However with the high levels ofaccess at school and at home, lack of use in other locations is not surprising.

2.2.2 Primary teachers’ satisfaction with hardware and software atschool

Sixty-nine percent of primary teachers, either agreed, strongly agreed orvery strongly agreed that the school’s computers were suitable to their needs.


15

With reference to other hardware and software the number of positiveresponses were lower 59% and 54% respectively. However, in relation tothis paper these responses may be somewhat misleading as they may relateto the suitability of hardware and software for supporting teaching andlearning, as the context of this question was not specified. On the other hand,it could be argued that, if the hardware and software is not suitable forteaching and learning this will add to teachers’ workload.

2.2.3 Schools’ ICT hardware and software for use at home

In 2.2.1, it was reported that there was high access to computers at home.However, across all primary schools, responses to the statements in thissection show limited levels of school-supported access to ICT hardware andsoftware at home. The highest level of support was 40% of primary teachershaving access at home to a laptop computer provided by the school, thoughaccording to interviews the laptop was often shared by two or more teachers.Provision of a desktop computer, for use at home, across all schools wasnegligible. Similarly, there was very limited home provision of otherhardware and licensed software. No teachers reported assistance in meetingthe costs of home Internet use. Only 8% of primary teachers could transferfiles electronically between school and home and only 21% could “accessthe school website and staff resources from home”. However, 37% ofprimary teachers reported the ability to access school e-mail from home.

16 Ian Selwood

In the open-ended questions at the end of the questionnaire, primaryteachers commonly raised the issue that they needed better access tohardware and software, and that the hardware and software needs to be fitfor use.

2.3 Primary Teachers’ Knowledge/Confidence in ICT

In commenting on this section an initial benchmark of the percentage ofteachers who respond positively to any of the three statements ‘I have mostof the skills I need’, ‘My skills are sufficient for my needs’ and ‘I am goodenough to teach this to others’ is used. Across all primary schools, fourapplications attract agreement from 50% or more: word processing (81%),the Internet (75%), e-mail (70%) and peripheral hardware (55%).Furthermore, an examination of Table 6 reveals that more than 20% ofprimary teachers responded that ‘I’ve never used this’ for 9 of the 15 items.


The great majority (91%) of primary teachers felt that they had improvedtheir ICT skills in the 12 months prior to completing the questionnaire.However, their opinions on the quality of the training they had received overthe same period was less positive with only just over half (54%) agreeingthat the training was good. Nonetheless, 96% disagreed with the statement “Ido not need to learn to use ICT”, implying they wanted further training.

2.4 Training in ICT

17

2.4.1 Primary teachers’ views on training

2.5 Types of Training

It should be noted that more than one response is possible to each of thestatements in Table 8, although in practice, few teachers made multipleentries. The low level of what might be termed formal training as comparedwith ‘no training’ and ‘help from a friend or colleague’, other than a schoolICT expert, is worrying. In summary, for 14 of the 15 items, 20% or more ofteachers report having received no training or help; for 7 of these items, 50%or more teachers report having received no training or help. Examining theitems where primary teachers report the higher levels of more formaltraining only two (word processing at 64% and spreadsheets at 50%) wereidentified by 50 per cent or more teachers. Databases (48%), Internet (43%)and e-mail (34%) were the next highest.

18 Ian Selwood

The interviews revealed that there is a need for more training and time topractice what has been learned in formal training sessions. However, NOFICT training is generally regarded as having been ineffective overall, butfour of the twenty-two primary schools reported positive experiences ofNOF training. LEA training was generally regarded as effective, but therewere some comments regarding variability in quality and responsiveness toneeds. In-house formal training is a strong feature of ICT training, and it isgenerally regarded as very effective. However, the interviews supported thequestionnaire data that primary schools rely a lot on in-house self-taughtapproaches based on learning by doing the job supported by manuals. This isa response to necessity and while it meets an immediate need staff are


19

concerned that this approach can only do so much and that opportunities forlearning could be lost.

At the end of the questionnaire open-ended questions were askedregarding issues that most concerned respondents regarding their use of ICT,and they were also asked to give examples of what they needed to furtherdevelop their role through use of ICT. In response to both questions, themost common response was need for more and better training for staff andneed for time to practice what they have learnt. Primary teachers also feltthere was a need to improve use of ICT in administration and managementof teaching and learning e.g. access to and analysis of pupil progress data

2.6 Use of ICT

2.6.1 Frequency of use of ICT for management and administration

Frequency of use of ICT for management and administration, as revealedby the responses in this section of the questionnaire, were generally low.Taking use of once a week or more, only three categories achieved morethan a 20% response - word processing (56%), searching the Internet (22%)and the use of peripherals (37%). Furthermore, 13 of 15 areas of use were

20 Ian Selwood

reported as not being used by 59% or more of primary teachers. Presentingthe data in terms of more modest levels of use, 10 out of the 15 categorieswere used for management or administration purposes, by 20% or more ofteachers in primary schools.

2.6.2 Ways in which primary teachers use ICT to support their work

Five items were selected by half or more of the primary teachers:preparation of resources (77%), lesson planning (71%), report writing(64%), curriculum planning (64%) and as a lesson resource (60%). A further7 items were selected by more than 30% of teachers: record keeping (e.g.database entry) (31%), special educational needs coordination (SENCO)(31%), development planning (31%), marking and assessment (33%),monitoring pupil progress (35%), presentations/demonstrations (38%),school policy development (43%), reprographics/photocopying (43%), andtimetabling (47%). It was expected that the use of ICT for financial


21

management and administration would not be used widely as theseapplications tend to be used by a few senior managers in schools, and thiswas the case. However, the use of ICT for electronic communications wasnoted as being very low, with only 8% of primary teachers reporting use ofemail for contacting pupils or other staff, and 3% for parent or carer contact.

The interview data tends to support data gathered by the questionnaire,with the most frequently mentioned examples of the use of ITEM being:planning for teaching and learning; monitoring student progress andassessment; report writing and production of lists. Interviewees were alsoasked to give examples of the benefits of using ICT for management andadministration and the most common responses were: more efficient andeffective management of work because documents can be updated, editedand shared more easily; more efficient and effective handling of data; accessto data improved; quality of data and how it can be used is improved;reduction of workload; and improved presentation and quality of work.

2.6.3 Factors that might encourage greater use of ICT

It is apparent from the results discussed earlier, that primary teachers arein general positive about the use of ICT to support their administration andmanagement. However, it is also apparent that such use is limited. Whenasked what factors might encourage them to use ICT more the results shownin Table 11 were obtained. Primary schools teachers’ responses to all theoptions presented to them in this question show high levels of agreementwith a range from 67% to 97%. Only two items score lower than 80% andthese were easier access at home (67%) and cheaper training (72%). Thehighest scoring item was a wish to be ‘released from work for training’,which attracted 97 per cent agreement.

22 Ian Selwood

3 CONCLUSION

The results of this baseline study clearly show that primary teachers arepositive about the value of ICT in supporting their administrative andmanagement duties. However, when primary teachers’ actual use of ICT foradministration and management is analysed, the levels of use are quite low.Primary teachers appeared to be aware of the potential of ICT to reduce theirworkload and improve the quality of their work but also recognise their needfurther training, which they are keen to undertake. It is apparent that primaryteachers have very little non-contact time in English primary schools, and ifthey are to make greater use of ICT for administration and managementeither more non-contact time is essential or they need better and cheapercommunications between home and school, or both. Furthermore, concernsover access to quality ICT equipment appears to be a real and major issue.

4 REFERENCES

Becta, (2003). What the research says about ICT and reducing teacher workloads. Coventry:Becta. www.becta.org.uk/research/ictrn

Department for Education and Employment. (1997). Connecting the learning society:National Grid for Learning (Government Consultation Paper). London: DfEE.

Department for Education and Skills. (2002). Curriculum Online. London: DfES.www.dfes.gov.uk/curriculumonline

Department for Education and Skills. (2003). ICT Test Bed Project. London: DfES.www.dfes.gov.uk/ictinschools/ict_active/subject.cfm?articleid=474

Selwood, I., Smith, D., Wishart, J., (2001). Supporting UK teachers through the National Gridfor Learning in Nolan, P., Fung, A.C.W., & Brown, M.A. (Eds), Pathways to InstitutionalImprovement with Information Technology in Educational Management. p 159-171.Boston: Kluwer.

Stevenson Committee. (1997). Information and communications technology in UK schools:An independent enquiry (The Stevenson Report). London: Pearson.[http://www.rubble.ultralab.anglia.ac.uk/stevenson/contents.html]

Teacher Training Agency. (1998). New Opportunities Fund. The use of ICT in subjectteaching lottery-funded training. Expected outcomes. London: DfEE.

5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The research described in this paper was led by Professor H Thomas andundertaken by G Butt, T Fielding, J Foster, H Gunter, A Lance, R Lock, LPotts, R Pilkington, S Powers, S Rayner, D Rutherford, I Selwood and ASoares.

Reaping ITEM BenefitsA Link Between Staff ICT Access, Ability and Use

Christopher O’MahonySaint Ignatius’ College, Riverview, Sydney, [email protected]

Abstract: This paper reports on a survey of ICT Access, Ability and Use conductedamong 25 schools in England and Wales in 2002/03. The survey concentratedon school staff, and sought to investigate links between four key areas: (a)access to ICT both in and outside school; (b) perceived and desired ICT abilityof staff; (c) use of ICT both in and outside school; and (d) issues which inhibitincreased use of ICT in teaching, learning and administration. Survey resultsindicated that access to ICT resources was high for this sample, both at schooland at home. Furthermore, staff reported overall satisfaction with their ICTabilities across core applications, whilst calling for more training in ‘advanced’applications. Despite these confident results regarding Access and Ability,staff reported wide variability in actual Use of ICT. Results drawn from thesurvey are contrasted with comparable studies from the UK and overseas, witha view to assisting schools to reap the benefits of e-leaming innovations.

Keywords: School information systems, Professional Development, EducationalManagement, information technology.

1 INTRODUCTION

A number of commentators have highlighted concerns regarding theimplementation of ICT policies for staff in schools. These concerns revolvearound issues relating to staff access to ICT resources, staff ICT training,and the encouragement of staff ICT confidence and competence.Conventional wisdom suggests that high access to ICT and high ability withICT must lead to high use of ICT. That is, “ICT Access + ICT Ability = ICTUse”. It is unclear in the literature, however, how these variables may belinked, if at all.

24 Christopher O’Mahony

A pilot study conducted in late 2001 at one school (O’Mahony 2002)suggested certain trends:

Home access to ICT, including Internet and email, was high.Staff confidence with a number of ICT applications was strong, and staffwere seeking to advance their skills.Classroom use of ICT was variable.The key inhibitors to using ICT in the classroom were time, training andresources.The pilot study had a sample population of some 100 staff members. It

was clear that a wider study would help to either corroborate these findings,or suggest alternative trends. The main research questions for the 2002/03study were as follows:

What are the current levels of access to ICT resources among schoolstaff?What are the current levels of ability with ICT among school staff?What are the current levels of use of ICT resources among school staff?What are the main barriers to increasing the use of ICT in teaching,learning and administration?What links can be perceived between ICT Access, Ability and Use?In late 2002, the British Educational Communications and Technology

Agency (Becta) sponsored research to seek answers to the areas noted above.The research had two main phases: Survey and Scholarship. Both phaseswere conducted concurrently between October 2002 and March 2003. Aquestionnaire was developed in August and September 2002, andadministered in October 2002. The target population were 2800 staffmembers drawn from the 3,500 staff employed in the 25 schools operated bythe Girls’ Day School Trust (GDST). In total, 1366 responses were received,analysed between November 2002 and March 2003.

At the same time, an extensive review of the literature was conducted,investigating links between key research dimensions. The two phases of theresearch programme were complementary. The scholarship phase helped toinform questionnaire construction and survey design. Similarly, results of thesurvey were compared with benchmarks drawn from the literature.

Results indicated that although access to ICT resources was high, staffthroughout the Trust could improve their integration of ICT use in teaching,learning and administration. High levels of access to ICT resources werereported, well above national averages (Watson 2001, DfES 2000). Despiteconcentrations of ICT use, however, and some exciting initiatives bothlocally and centrally, the majority of staff used these resources lessfrequently than anticipated. The level of ICT training was perceived asinsufficient to meet needs, the main criticism being a lack of time availablefor training, given the range of commitments in which staff are involved.

Reaping ITEM Benefits 25

Outcomes of the survey included practical areas for consideration,including training programmes, home-school network links and carefullytargeted ICT resourcing. Although much had been invested, the challengewas to reap the return on that investment more fully.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT

2.1 ICT Access

2

The general domain regarding ICT in schools has gathered significantresearch momentum in recent years (Stevenson 1997, Research Machines2000, National Statistics 2002). One area of debate concerning ICT inschools is a recognition that high levels of access are required to achieve a‘critical mass’ of user confidence and ability. Since the publication ofdocuments such as the Stevenson Report (1997), schools have experiencedlarge-scale funding of infrastructure and equipment, especially in connectionwith the National Grid for Learning (DfES 2001).

Case studies reflecting successful computer integration have all shownsuch schools to be provided with excellent facilities, technical backup andfinancial resources (Mumtaz 2000). Other writers express reservations thataccess to ICT, on its own, will provide positive educational outcomes(Cuban 2000). High level of access to ICT resources is an important goal,but is itself a means to a greater end. Within the literature concerning ICTaccess, therefore, are frequent links with ICT use and ICT ability.Government agencies in particular seek to quantify return on investment, andseek to collect qualitative evidence of ICT effectiveness in schools (Becta2000, Becta 2001a, Becta 2001b, NGfL 2001, DfES 2002).

National Statistics (DfES 2002) report, in a study based on data collectedin early 2002, that 85% of teachers had access to home computers. There isgrowing evidence that higher ratios of home access have a positive effect onICT ability and use. For instance, the major Impact2 study (NGfL 2002b)reports that “Having a computer at home has a significant impact onteachers’ ICT capability.”

2.2 ICT Ability

It is generally acknowledged in the literature that getting ICTprofessional development ‘right’ is very difficult to achieve (Mumtaz 2000,Selwood et al. 2000, Visscher & Brandhorst 2001, McDougall & Squires1997). At the same time, despite the difficulties, there is also recognition


that there are critical links between staff ICT ability and staff ICT use, andstaff ICT ability and student ICT ability (Kennewell et al. 2000, Russell etal. 2000, NGfL 2002c).

2.3 ICT Use

A number of factors influence staff ICT use. The survey reported herelooked closely at relationships between ICT Access, ICT Ability, ICT Useand ICT Inhibitors to use. These factors, and others, can be discerned in theliterature. Mumtaz (2000), in her review of this area, highlights both positiveand negative factors affecting ICT use. Positive factors include“...collegiality among computer-using teachers at their school, schoolsupport for consequential computer activities, resources for schooldevelopment, smaller class sizes and more formal computer training.”(Mumtaz 2000). Technical support and senior management commitment areother recurring themes (NGfL 2002d).

Another theme apparent in the literature is the attitudes of staff. NationalStatistics notes that 76% of teachers felt confident using ICT in thecurriculum (National Statistics 2002). However, “Schools can only go so farto encourage ICT use - actual take-up depends largely on teachers’ personalfeelings, skills and attitudes to IT in general.” (Mumtaz 2000). This iscorroborated by Hruskocy et al. (2000), Kirkman (2000), and Yee (2000).

2.4 ICT Inhibitors

Although reports concerning improvements in ICT Access and ICTconfidence are encouraging, such improvements appear to be patchy acrossphases, subject areas and geographical location. A number of inhibitors toICT use are evident in the literature, which appear to be cross-phase, cross-department and geographically independent. Foremost among theseinhibitors are the following:

Lack of time (NGfL 2002a, NGfL 2002b, Mumtaz 2000, Kirkman 2000).Lack of training (Kirkman 2000, Mumtaz 2000).Lack of senior management support (Kennewell et al. 2000, NGfL2002a, NGfL 2002b, Passey 2002).Lack of technical support (Sheingold & Hadley 1990, NGfL 2002c,NGfL 2002d, Yee 2000).Lack of a genuinely supportive culture (Sheingold & Hadley 1990,Kennewell et al. 2000, Mumtaz 2000).Lack of teacher confidence and motivation (Kirkman 2000, NGfL 2001,NGfL 2002a, NGfL 2002b).Lack of ICT resources (Sheingold & Hadley 1990, Mumtaz 2000).


In summary, the literature is rich in both qualitative and quantitativestudies concerning the four dimensions under investigation in this survey.Although these four dimensions frequently appear, however, there are fewstudies that attempt to quantify the relationships between them. In thiscontext, a quantitative study of the relationship between ICT Access, ICTAbility, ICT Use and ICT Inhibitors would appear timely.

2.5 Contextual Background

The Girls’ Day School Trust has been operating since 1872, and is thelargest group of independent schools in the UK. Twelve of the schools arebased in London, and another thirteen are in regional centres. GDST schoolshave about 20,000 students on roll at any one time. Around 3500 staff areemployed in GDST schools, of which 2800 were targeted in this study.

In 1995, the Trust made a commitment to ICT in its schools. At that time,it embarked on a policy which included a strong investment in ICTinfrastructure, including LANs in each school and a Wide Area Networkconnecting all Trust sites, investments in software and hardware, stafftraining and ICT management mechanisms. A rollout of ISDN connectionswas completed in 1997, providing data communications links betweenschools and Trust Office, as well as access to Trust-wide email services andto the Internet. Local Area Networks in individual schools progressedsimultaneously, funded centrally. To make effective use of thisinfrastructure, the Trust set aside funding on a per capita basis for eachschool, designed to cover purchasing of PCs and other peripherals, softwarelicences, consumables, staff training and ongoing maintenance.

An important element of the Trust’s initiative was the establishment of ISmanagement posts in each school. Historically, like many other schools, theTrust had relied on enthusiastic teaching staff to provide technical ICTsupport. As the initiative developed and ICT became more complex andmore pervasive, the Trust recognised the need for full-time technicalsupport. By 1998, all Trust schools had either an Information SystemsManager or Network Manager and at least one ICT technician. Thisfollowed on from the establishment of a central support team who haveprovided high-level technical support and R&D, as well as assisting insetting policies and strategy, monitoring targets and technical progress inschools throughout the initiative.

Major internal audits of the Trust’s ICT initiative in 1997, 1998 and 2001(conducted by the Education, Finance, and ICT Managers) provided usefulsteering mechanisms. These audits helped to establish key elements of theTrust’s ICT policies, including:

Agreement on a common network infrastructure.


Agreement on a common MIS solution, including the strategic use ofassessment data.Agreement on the need for an annual ICT strategic planning process.Agreement on specific targets for ICT competence among both staff andstudents.Agreement on both central and local strategies designed to meet thosetargets.Within and between Trust schools, there is a growing recognition

throughout their communities (Staff, students, parents, and the like) that:Information and communication is swiftly becoming the ‘nervoussystem’, or the bloodstream of the school.ICT increasingly enables this flow of information and communication.ICT is the current fulcrum of radical change in education.ICT is an integral part of learning, both as content and medium, and isessential to the management of teaching and administration of the school.In this context, the Trust was keen to explore links between the key

research variables. In liaison with the Heads of each school, approval wasgiven to approach staff for the purposes of this investigation.

3 METHODOLOGY

Both Scholarship and Survey phases occurred concurrently. An extensiveliterature review was undertaken before, during and after the surveyinstrument was administered. Results drawn from sources such as NationalStatistics, DfES, Becta, BESA, Fischer Family Trust, relevant academicjournals and conference proceedings in this field were used to providebenchmarks for the survey phase. As responses were analysed, thesebenchmarks were used to contextualise and validate the results.

In the Survey Phase, a survey instrument was administered across 25schools in September 2002. The survey investigated the four dimensionspreviously stated. Research questions drew on the work of previous research(McDougall & Squires 1997, Cox et al. 1999, Mumtaz 2000, O’Mahony2000, O’Mahony 2002). The primary focus of the survey was its practicalelement. It was designed to provide swift feedback into ICT strategicplanning exercises. In this sense, the study had a strong Action Researchdimension (Baskerville & Wood-Harper 1996, Klein & Myers 1999).

Completed survey forms were collated in October 2002, and results wereanalysed from November 2002 to February 2003, according to strata such asSchool, Region, Age, Phase (Primary, Secondary) and Department. Datawere analysed to explore relationships between dependent and independentvariables.


4 RESULTS

4.1 ICT Access

Respondents were asked about their access to ICT at home. Results areshown below in Table 1, categorised by age group.

Respondents were asked to evaluate their access within school tocomputers, Internet and email, using a scale of 1 to 4, where 1 = Verydifficult, and 4 = Very easy. The following table (Table 2) shows schoolaccess to ICT broken down by age and phase:


4.2 ICT Ability

In Question 19 of the questionnaire, staff were asked to self-assess theircurrent ability with a selection of applications. In Question 20, they wereasked to nominate their desired level of ability with the same selection ofapplications. To determine ‘training priorities’, the differential between‘current’ and ‘desired’ was calculated for each application. These prioritieswere calculated for primary and secondary phases, and are shown in Table 3:

As can be seen from Table 3, most GDST staff expressed confidence intheir ability with core applications such as word processing, email andInternet searching. The main priorities perceived by GDST staff were fortraining in presentation-based applications (hardware and software), the clearimplication being that they recognised genuine benefit for teaching andlearning from these skills.

4.3 ICT Use

The following table (Table 4) summarises staff responses regarding Useof ICT. These figures are broken down by age strata, and are expressed interms of average hours per week.


4.4 ICT Barriers

Staff were asked to rank a set of ten items in response to the question“What’s holding you back?” These items were ranked on a scale of 1 to 10,where 1 = biggest problem, and 10 = least problem. The following table(Table 5) ranks these inhibitors across strata:


Analysing the above table provides a rich indicator for ICT strategicplanning. The ‘top five’ inhibitors were those perceived by a significantproportion of respondents as needing addressing.

Across the entire sample, TIME was seen as the biggest barrier to the useof ICT.The amount of ICT training (Quantity) was perceived as a significantbarrier to the use of ICT.Other barriers tended to focus on the level of resourcing (Quantity),rather than the quality of those resources.

4.5 Correlating the Results

The main research hypothesis sought to test the notion that “ICT Access+ ICT Ability = ICT Use”. A number of different correlations were testedacross the sample. Results show that generally staff will use ICT more whenthey have greater access. More specifically, the results show that ability,rather than access, is a stronger predictor of ICT use. There appear to be alarge number of staff who have reasonable access to ICT both at home and atschool, but at the same time demonstrate low ICT use. These staff willclearly need to be the focus for subsequent ICT initiatives.

In the under 25 age group, ability is related to ICT use far more than forother age groups. This suggests that age may influence ICT use and ICTability. Younger staff also demonstrate greater ICT access, particularly athome. One possible explanation may be that people under 30 who have usedcomputers since being students themselves have greater ICT confidence, andtherefore demonstrate greater ICT use. Conversely, the staff to target aretherefore those over 30 who have indicated low ICT ability. ICT traininginitiatives should target those who are uncomfortable using ICT.

Correlation coefficients were calculated for all variables, and were testedat the 0.005 level of validity (Attwood et al. 2000). That is, there is a lessthan 0.5% chance that these correlations are purely by chance. Thecoefficients were found to be significant, thus the null hypothesis - “Access+ Ability <> Use” must be rejected.

5 CONCLUSIONS

The main research questions for this study were as follows:What are the current levels of access to ICT resources among schoolstaff?What are the current levels of ability with ICT among school staff?


What are the current levels of use of ICT resources among school staff?What are the main barriers to increasing the use of ICT in teaching,learning and administration?What links can be perceived between ICT Access, Ability and Use?

5.1 ICT Access

Both at home and at work, respondents reported high levels of access tocomputers, including Internet and email access. Arising from this finding, itis recommended that school managers target their funding and resources onthat diminishing number of staff without access. Furthermore, the findingsuggested that strategies such as a global staff laptop programme were notwarranted. Rather, concentrating funding on the development of remote-access technologies, such as Extranets, Virtual Private Networks and VirtualLearning Environments would help school managers to reap the benefits ofthis high level of access.

5.2 ICT Ability

In terms of ability, it was found that most staff perceived that they had acore competence in ICT applications, and were seeking to extend theirabilities to a higher level. This finding confirmed the results of other internalreviews into investment in training strategies such as ECDL. In order tomake best use of this core competence and extend it, school managers shouldconsider the development of a central ICT staff training function. Such a rolecould centrally monitor and coordinate staff training in ITEM as well asexemplary ICT for teaching and learning.

5.3 ICT Use

Within the sample under investigation, staff reported relatively high useof ICT resources at home and outside of classes. Within classes, however,wide variability of ICT use was reported (between 0 and 11 hours per week,depending on departmental area). As noted above, the development ofremote access technologies may well encourage the transfer of staff ICT usefrom home to school. It is further recommended that school managers targetindividual departmental areas to encourage classroom use of ICT. Thisshould be closely linked to externally mandated curriculum outcomes as wellas internal curriculum targets.


5.4 Barriers to ICT Use

The study highlighted some barriers confronting staff as they seek tointegrate ICT use more fully in their teaching, learning and administration.Chief among these were lack of time, amount of support staff, and theamount and quality of ICT training. To a lesser extent, but still worthy ofcomment, many staff reported that both the quantity and quality of staff ICTresources was a significant issue. These issues present serious challenges forschool managers. Suggestions for overcoming these barriers include:

Celebrate existing successful strategies for enabling staff sufficient timeto assimilate new learning technologies.Continue to seek further innovative models for staff ICT training.Revisit both the job and person specification of ICT support personnel, aswell as the quantity of ICT support provision in individual schools.Set specific targets within individual school IT strategic plans fordelivering resources, time and support for staff, as well as clearly-definedtargets for evidence of ICT use in teaching, learning and administration.

5.5 Correlations between variables

There is a positive correlation between (ICT Access + ICT Ability) andICT Use (0.54)

This correlation is most pronounced among staff under 35 years old:(0.67)

Work Access is seen as a stronger predictor of ICT Use than HomeAccess: (0.3383 vs 0.2118)

These correlations are significant at the 0.005 level (Attwood et al. 2000)

6 IN CONCLUSION

This research sought to answer questions regarding ICT Access, ICTAbility and ICT Use among a large sample of UK school staff. On the onehand, there are some encouraging results, suggesting that core issuesregarding access to ICT resources and core competence with ICT are beingaddressed. This is the result both of interventionist policies by the GDST, aswell as the influence of external factors outside the control of the Trust.

On the other hand, challenges exist. Despite an underlying willingness tomove forward with ICT Ability and ICT Use, staff feel constrained by issuessuch as lack of available time, and a lack of relevant training. Like otherschools and school authorities, the GDST is also constantly faced with otherchallenges, such as sustainability, security, cost management, technicalsupport management and change management.


The future for ICT in the Girls’ Day School Trust looks exciting, as itconsiders the way forward with evolving technologies such as VLEs andMLEs, integrated management systems, videoconferencing and the like. Bymaintaining their agility in an ever-changing ICT landscape, staff of theGDST are well-placed to respond positively to these evolving technologies,and truly ‘reap ITEM benefits.’

7 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Attwood, G., Dyer, G., and Skipworth, G., (2000), Statistics 3. Oxford: Heinemann.Baskerville, R.L., Wood-Harper, T., (1996), “A critical perspective on action research as a

method for information systems research”, Journal of Information Technology, 1996, 11,pp235-246.

BECTA (2000), Connecting Schools, Networking People: ICT planning, purchasing andgood practice for the national Grid for Learning, Coventry: British EducationalCommunications and Technology Agency.

BECTA (2001a), Primary Schools of the Future - Achieving today. A report to the DfEE byBecta, Coventry: British Educational Communications and Technology Agency.

BECTA (2001b), The Secondary School of the Future. A preliminary report to the DfEE byBecta, Coventry: British Educational Communications and Technology Agency.

Cox, M., Preston, C. and Cox, K (1999), What factors support or prevent teachers from usingICT in their classrooms? Paper presented at the British Educational Research AssociationAnnual Conference, University of Sussex, Brighton, November 1999.

Cuban, L. (2000), Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom. Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press.

DfES (2000). Information Management Strategy for Schools and LEAS.http://www.dfee.gov.uk/ims/summary.brief.shtm. DfEE. London

DfES (2001), ICT Access and Use: Report on the Benchmark Survey, DfES Research ReportNo 252. London: Department for Education and Skills.

DfES (2002), Transforming the way we learn: a vision of the future of ICT in schools,London: Department for Education and Skills.

Hruskocy, C., Cennamo, K.S., Ertmer, P.A., Johnson, T., (2000) “Creating a community oftechnology users: students become technology experts for teachers and peers”, Journal ofTechnology and Teacher Education, Vol 8, pp69-84

Kirkman, C., (2000), “A model for the effective management of information andcommunications technology development in schools derived from six contrasting casestudies”, Journal of IT for Teacher Education (JITTE), V 9, No 1, 2000.

Kennewell, S., Parkinson, J., and Tanner, H., (2000), Developing the ICT-capable School.London: Routledge Falmer.

Klein, H.K., & Myers, M.D., (1999), “A set of principles for conducting and evaluatinginterpretive field studies in information systems”, in MISQ, Vol 23, No 1, March 1999, pp67-93.

McDougall, A., and Squires, D., (1997), “A framework for reviewing teacher professionaldevelopment programmes in information technology”, Journal of Information Technologyfor Teacher Education, 6, 2, 1997.


Mumtaz, S (2000), “Factors affecting teachers use of information and communicationstechnology: a review of the literature”, Journal of Information Technology for TeacherEducation, 9, 3, 2000.

NGfL (2001), Impact2: Emerging findings from the evaluation of the impact of informationand communications technologies on pupil attainment. ICT in School Research andEvaluation Series - No 1. Annesley: DfES.

NGfL (2002a), Impact2: The impact of information and communication technologies on pupillearning and attainment. ICT in School Research and Evaluation Series - No 7. Annesley:DfES.

NGfL (2002b), Impact2: Learning at home and school: Case Studies. ICT in School Researchand Evaluation Series - No 8. Annesley: DfES.

NGfL (2002c), NGfL Pathfinders: Second report on the roll-out of the NGfL programme inten Pathfinder LEAs. ICT in School Research and Evaluation Series - No 10. Annesley:DfES.

NGfL (2002d), NGfL Pathfinders: Final report on the roll-out of the NGfL programme in tenPathfinder LEAs. ICT in School Research and Evaluation Series - No 11. Annesley: DfES.

National Statistics (2002). www.dfes.gov.uk/statistics/db/sbu/b0360/sb07-2002.pdfO’Mahony, C.D., (2000), The evolution and evaluation of information systems in NSW

Secondary schools in the 1990s: the impact of values on information systems. PhD Thesis(unpublished): Sydney: Macquarie University.

O’Mahony, C.D. (2002), Managing ICT Access and Training for Educators: A Case Study,Proceedings: Information Technology for Educational Management (ITEM2002conference), Helsinki (Forthcoming).

Passey, D., (2002), ICT and School Management: A review of Selected Literature.Unpublished Research Report: Lancaster University, Department of Educational Research.

Research Machines PLC (2000) The RM G7 (8) Report 2000 comparing ICT provision inSchools, Abingdon: RMplc.

Russell, G., Finger, G., Russell, N., (2000), “Information technology skills of Australianteachers: implications for teacher education”, Journal of IT for Teacher Education(JITTE), V 9, No 2, 2000.

Selwood, I.D., Smith, D., & Wisehart, J. (2000), “Supporting teachers through the NationalGrid for Learning”, in Nolan, C.J.P., Fung, A.C.W. & Brown, M.A. (2000), Pathways toinstitutional improvement with information technology in educational management.Boston: Kluwer.

Sheingold, K., & Hadley, M., (1990), Accomplished teachers: integrating computers intoclassroom practice, New York: Centre for Technology in Education.

Stevenson, R., (1997), Information and Communications Technology in UK Schools: anindependent inquiry (The Stevenson Report).

Visscher, A.J. & Brandhorst, E.M. (2001), How should School Managers be Trained forManagerial School Information System Usage? In Pathways to Institutional Improvementwith Information Technology in Educational Management. Edited by Nolan, C.J.P., Fung,A.C.W., & Brown, M.A. Kluwer for IFIP. London

Watson, G (2001), “Models of information technology teacher professional development thatengage with teachers’ hearts and minds”, Journal of IT for Teacher Education (JITTE), 10,1-2, 2001.

Yee, D.L., (2000), “Images of school principals’ information and communications technologyleadership”, Journal of IT for Teacher Education (JITTE), V 9, No 3, 2000.

Managing Accountability Innovations in Distance-Learning Programs

Connie L. FulmerUniversity of Colorado at Denver, [email protected]

Abstract: Accountability is a complex process in any organizational learning experienceand even more so in distance-learning environments. Some of thecomplications include issues of measuring performance, using authenticassessments, meeting performance-based standards, and integrating all withdistance-learning technologies. This paper describes online-accountabilityinnovations used in distance-learning programs and how these online toolshelp students provide evidence of their readiness for educational-leadershippositions.

Key words: Accountability, self-assessment, project-based learning, reflective-justificationrubric, professional-growth charts.

1 INTRODUCTION

Colorado led the nation (USA) in the adoption of performance-basedstandards for preparing both principals and superintendents. The InterstateLeadership Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standards quickly followed andwere adopted in whole or part by forty-four of the fifty states. In addition,the Technology Standards for School Administrators (TSSA) were adoptedby a consortium of organizations and provide further direction for leadershippreparation. More recently, the Educational Leadership Constituent Counciland the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (ELCC-NCATE) adopted program performance standards set forth by the NationalPolicy Board for Educational Administration (NPBEA, 2002) and used themto accredit both schools and colleges of education and individual programareas. The ALPS program faculty, like many others, found themselves facingmultiple sets of standards. As a result, our redesigned program meets thefollowing sets of standards: (a) Colorado Principal/Administrator licensure

38 Connie L. Fulmer

standards, (b) ELCC-NCATE program standards, and (c) TechnologyStandards for School Administrators.

The Administrative Leadership and Policy Studies (ALPS) facultyresponded to issues related to accountability, performance-assessmentstandards, and distance-learning technologies (Baker, 2003; Hutchins, 2003;Howell, Williams, & Lindsday, 2003) by designing online accountabilitytools for managing assessment ‘of learning’ and ‘for learning’ (Stiggins,2001; Chappius, Stiggins, Arter, & Chappius, 2003) in an online principal-licensure program.

Baker (2003) provided a framework with twenty-six elements for thedesign and evaluation of Internet–based, distance-learning courses. Wefocused on seven of these elements listed below:Practice – provide online activities that require students to practice the skills

necessary to achieve the desired behavior and provide a feedbackmechanism to correct student mistakes during practice activities.

Variety – create a variety of learning experiences (and distance learningtools) to enhance student learning.

Outcomes – match distance learning tools and the required outcomes.Integration – create activities that include skill development that would be

related to a variety of contexts and other subjects/fields.Baseline evaluation – use self-assessment tools to determine a baseline for

growth comparison.Successive evaluations – have students repeat self-assessments during the

program.Appropriate evaluation type – ensure that the skills and knowledge

necessary to successfully complete the evaluations representative of theskills and knowledge necessary to achieve the intended behavior.

Chappuis, Stiggins, Arter, and Chapppius (2003, p. 35) provided our facultywith the concept of assessment ‘for’ instruction. These authors claim thatassessment ‘for’ instruction is far more than was intended through aformative assessment process. We adopted the following elements ofassessment for learning:Understanding and articulating in advance of teaching the achievement

targets that their students are to hit.Informing their students about those learning goals in terms that students

understand form the very beginning.Engaging students in regular self-assessment with standards held constant so

they can watch themselves grow over time and thus learn to become incharge of their own success.

Making sure that students understand how the achievement targets that theystrive to hit now relate to those that will come after.

Managing Accountability Innovations in Distance-Learning Programs 39

2 ONLINE-ACCOUNTABILITY TOOLS

Accountability tools used in the distance-learning program include: (a)online project-based learning, (b) performance-based standards; (c) selfassessments (d) a reflective-justification rubric, (e) professional-growthcharts, and (f) the scurry matrix. These tools are used in programs thatrequire both face-to-face and online experiences (hybrid programs) but weredeveloped specifically for the distance-learning cohort. Each of these onlinetools is described below.

2.1 Project-Based Learning

As standards were first introduced in Colorado the ALPS facultyresponded by transforming their course-based program into four eight-creditlearning domains. With the addition of performance assessments and theopportunity provided by the online program to stretch projects over foursemesters, instructional teams moved to project-based learning. The projectscrossed traditional course and semester boundaries and provided anorganizing structure for our principal-licensure program. These projects arevehicles for transforming learning experiences for cohort students andfaculty. They provide opportunities for both student and program assessmentand facilitate optimal integration of traditional curriculum, real-worldassignments of principals in the field, and the requirements placed onprograms by various sets of performance-assessment standards andaccrediting bodies..

A description of these projects is beyond the scope of this paper but apartial list can provide an overview of the type of work students tackleduring their four-semester-long program: (a) a knowledge-base journal, (b)mission-vision project, (c) culture study, (d) legal audit (e), instructional-leadership work sample, (f) school improvement planning, and (h) aleadership resume. Each online project is presented to students completewith rationale, description, guiding questions, relevant literature, learningactivities, required work products, and a detailed process for writing up theproject in artifact format.

The artifact format requires three components or sections: (a) a coverpage, (b) a reflective justification, and (c) any work products producedduring the learning experience. Project-based learning is the first onlineaccountability tool and provides students and faculty with authentic learningexperiences upon which to build both personal and professional knowledgeof the field of leadership.

40 Connie L. Fulmer

2.2 Performance-Based Standards

Students in our online programs must present evidence that they havemet the Colorado Principal/Administrator licensure standards. Thesestandards are organized into eleven categories: (a) foundations for learning,(b) contextual understanding, (c) planning and organizing contextualunderstanding, (d) content knowledge instruction, (e) individualization ofinstruction, (f) management and evaluation of instruction, (g) supervision ofpersonnel, (h) supervision of student conduct, (i) resources, (j) school safetyand maintenance, (k) parent and community involvement. Each of thesecategories has a set of associated standards. Electronic versions of thesestandards are provided to support student work. The first instance was a copyin PDF format. The second was a file set up to print on the front and back ofname-card stock. Once printed separated, these name cards become a deck ofperformance standards for students to sort into piles related to specificprogram projects. The third file was in word format so students could cutand paste individual standards into the artifact product.

2.3 Self Assessments

Using principles of assessment (Stiggins, 2001; Chappius, Stiggins,Arter, & Chappius, 2003) and effective online delivery (Baker, 2003;Hutchins, 2003) faculty designed a complete set of online assessment toolsfor each set of standards. These electronic forms were linked to onlinelearning environments and students were able to complete these self-assessments four times during the course of their program.

Data collected included student name, cohort instance, survey instance,and for each standard and standard element the level of understanding aswell as evidence supporting the selected level reported by the student. Fourlevels of understanding/evidence (little evidence, some evidence, conceptualevidence, and performance evidence) were constructed based on the ELCC-NCATE requirements and are described in the reflective justification rubricsection of this paper. If students selected either conceptual evidence (levelthree) or performance evidence (level four) to describe their level ofunderstanding, they were required to provide a description of that experienceor a reference to a particular portfolio artifact in a text box option on theonline survey.

These self-assessments tools served both purposes of assessment ‘of’and‘for’ learning (Stiggins, 2001; Chappius, Stiggins, Arter, & Chappius, 2003).These assessments are used by faculty to determine the learning needs of thestudents before finalizing learning projects for the group or customizingprojects for specific partnership districts. Students use self-assessment


results to document their learning progress on the growth charts describebelow. At the end of the program, students were able to determine whichstandards they had mastered and which standards required further attention.These unmet standards became targets for professional growth and werelisted in students’ professional-growth plans.

2.4 Reflective-Justification Rubric

The reflective-justification rubric in Table 1 is an online tool used bystudents and faculty to evaluate student performance. The rubric outlinesfour levels of performance evidence. Students use the rubric to constructtheir reflection justifications, one of the three components of the artifactsstudents must produce. Faculty members use the rubric to evaluate onlinesubmissions of student work. Students are expected to write their reflective-justification at level three or four. Artifacts are returned to students untileach standard referenced meets these minimum levels. Each of these levelsis described below.

2.4.1 Evidence Level One

Initially, when students begin to address standards they reference thestandard and allude to its importance. They may say that professionaldevelopment strategies were important for a principal to use with the staff.However, in this statement there is no evidence that the student knowsanything about professional development. No standard was referenced andno authors or work was cited. Many students have level one reflectivejustification instances in their earliest work in the program.

2.4.2 Evidence Level Two

As students begin to integrate literature, research, and concepts withschool contexts they are able to provide some evidence by citing authors andreferencing a standard. A student might write that DuFour and Eaker (1998)know how to create professional learning communities and that when theybecome a principal they will build a learning community. Such a statementfall shorts of evidence of conceptual understanding. Missing are the sixcharacteristics of a professional learning community and the strategies aprincipal might use to develop such a community. At this level programfaculty have little confidence that this student would be able to provideleadership for developing a professional learning community. Level twowork would be returned to the student for additional work.

42 Connie L. Fulmer


2.4.3 Evidence Level Three

To achieve level three on the rubric, student reflections must include thefollowing elements. First, they must describe the context in which theirleadership strategies would be implemented. Second, students mustreference authors and provide evidence of the models, frameworks,characteristics, or concepts developed by those authors that provide ideasand successful implementation strategies that might be employed by thefuture principals in the actual practice of leadership. Level three reflectionsinclude the use of ‘I’ statements. Initially, students may write that‘principals’ (third person reference) should have a particular position onsome issue. We typically return this work to students, ask for personalevidence of what each would do in the situation, and request that ‘I’statements be used to communicate their leadership intentions. Reflectionswritten at level three express what each student would do, whose researchthey would use, and what frameworks and authors would inform theirpractice. If these elements are present for each standard referenced, studentsare writing at level three and are rewarded with signatures frominstructional-team members. Once artifacts are signed, they are placed intothe students’ program portfolios.

2.4.4 Evidence Level Four

This evidence level includes all requirements listed for level three butmust include evidence of actual performance in a school setting. Many ofthese standards are met through clinical-practice activities. Students wouldreference standards, authors, research, models, recommended strategies,results achieved, and would perhaps reflect on the success of these activitiesor changes they might make on future instance. In our program, level three isthe minimum requirement for signature and level four can only be attainedthrough clinical-practice experiences.

2.5 Professional-Growth Charts

As students complete the online self-assessment surveys and use thereflective-justification rubric to measure their learning, they record theirprogress on the third online tool, professional-growth charts. Figure 1provides a view of one of the eleven growth charts for standard eight of theColorado Principal Performance Standards. There are six additional chartsfor the TSSA standards and six more for the ELCC-NCATE standards.Students enter self-assessment scores into driver cells on these growth chartsand the graph lines adjust to represent the scores. Students repeat the self-

44 Connie L. Fulmer

assessment three more times during the program and record the results onthe growth charts. Students save and print these growth charts at the end ofthe program as work products for an artifact. Standards not achieved aretargeted by the students as elements to be addressed in their professional-growth plan.

Figure 1. Professional growth charts where students record their self assessment scores. Thechart illustrates student progress in mastering performance standards by academic semester.

2.6 The Scurry Matrix

The scurry matrix, depicted in Table 2 and inspired by the mousecharacter in Who Moved My Cheese (Johnson & Blanchard, 1998), is anotheronline-accountability tool developed to help students keep track of bothstandards met and artifacts completed. The matrix guides students as theydevelop artifacts and demonstrates evidence of their learning. Facultymembers use the matrix to assess the scope and sequence of not only studentprojects rendered in artifact format, but also the extent to which studentscovered particular standards across artifacts. The matrix provides yet anotherway to manage accountability in an online leadership program.

3 EFFECTS OF ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATIONS

The effects of these online innovations are distributed across all of theaccountability tools and all levels of stakeholders (students, faculty, and


program). The use of the online tools (project-based learning, performancestandards, self-assessment surveys, the reflective-justification rubric, growthcharts, and the scurry matrix) in the leadership program produced students

who were able to think about and write reflective justification evidence atlevel three and four, demonstrating that they have met state and nationalperformance standards. This practice results in students who have adeveloped their own personal and professional knowledge base as well asstrategies for a variety of contexts in which to demonstrate their leadershipcapabilities. All of these online-accountability innovations are used indistance-learning leadership cohorts to help students develop and faculty todetermine student-readiness levels for important educational leadershippositions.

Since implementing these accountability tools, faculty have reported thatthe transition for students from teacher to leader that traditionally occurrednear the end of the program or during their clinical practice experiences wasoccurring much earlier in the program. With their first artifact, students areasked to report what they would do, what literature or research supportedtheir intended strategies, and how those strategies might be mediated by thecontext of their particular school during the course of the program. Theperceived impact of these accountability tools appear to result in thedevelopment of administrator perspective in students during the middle ofthe second of four semesters rather than at the end of the program or not atall. Prior to the implementation of the online-accountability tools, studentwork was less focused and evidenced fewer instances and lower levels ofintensity of leadership efficacy. Since implementing the online tools,students report that they feel prepared to be principals, are looking forward

46 Connie L. Fulmer

to their first assignments, and are already considering geographical moves toobtain that first leadership position.

Next steps for ALPS faculty include designing research that will result innot only a thick description of the transition from teacher to leader trackedby the accountability tools but other data that will track self-assessmentscollected over time, by individual student, and by cohort group. These datawill be used to continue to modify projects and learning activities to enhanceinstances and degree of leadership efficacy in principal candidates.

4 REFERENCES

Baker, R. (2003), A Framework for Design and Evaluation of Internet-Based Distancelearning Courses: Phase One – Framework Justification, Design and Evaluation, OnlineJournal of Distance Learning Administration, VI(11). Retrieved September 15, 2003 fromhttp://www.westga.edu/%7Edistance/ojdla/summer62/summer62.html

Chappius, Stephen; Stiggins, Richard; Arter, Judith & Chappius, Jan. (2003) Assessment FORLearning: An Action Guide for School Leaders, Assessment Training Institute, Portland,OR, USA.

DuFour, Richard; Eaker, Robert. (1998) Professional learning communities at work,Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria, VA,, USA.

Howell, S.L, Williams, P.B., & Nathan, K. L. (2003) Thirty-Two Trends Affecting DistanceEducation: An Informed Foundation for Strategic Planning. Online Journal of DistanceLearning Administration, VI (III).

Hutchins, H. (2003) Instructional immediacy and the seven principles: Strategies forfacilitating online courses, Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration2003:VI(11). http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall63/fall63.htm

Johnson, Spenser and Blanchard, Kenneth. (1998) Who moved my cheese?, Putnam, NewYork, USA.

National Policy Board for Educational Administration (2002). Standards for advancedprograms in educational leadership for principals, superintendents, curriculum directors,and supervisors, Author, Arlington, VA, USA.

Stiggins, Richard. (2001) Student-Involved Classroom Assessment ed.), Merrill, UpperSaddle River, NJ, USA.

Extending the ClassroomThe Virtual Integrated Teaching and Learning Environment(VITLE)

Alex C.W. Fung and Jenilyn LedesmaFaculty of Social Sciences, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong [email protected]

Abstract: This paper reports the case of an interactive, real time platform using web-technology in the delivery of teaching and learning when classes weresuspended during the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak inApril 2003 in Hong Kong. Responding to the suspension of schools duringthat unprecedented difficult period, the Hong Kong Baptist University offeredschools free use of its Internet-based Virtual Integrated Teaching and LearningEnvironment (VITLE) platform. Teachers and their students were encouragedto adopt e-Learning by continuing their classes on the VITLE platform, and 75schools registered to use the new technology. This is a specific example oftaking advantage of streaming technologies to create a rich, multi-mediacommunication solution for the benefits of the students, teachers and schools.

Key words: VITLE, real-time, synchronous, e-Learning, virtual classroom

1 INTRODUCTION

The past few years have seen an enormous growth in the accessibility ofInternet technologies, especially the World Wide Web (WWW). The rise ofthe Internet as a communication medium continues to transform education,and teachers must now re-think how to conduct their teaching. Thewidespread availability of high speed Internet connections, such asbroadband and digital subscriber lines (DSL), has allowed teachers to makegreater use of these technologies. Real-time interactions with audio-videoand multimedia features between teachers and students are already possibleinside ‘virtual classrooms’ on the Internet. E-Learning is likely to be

48 Alex C.W. Fung and Jenilyn Ledesma

pervasive as the technology becomes more widespread and affordable, asthis paper illustrates.

Advances in information and communications technology (ICT) havesignificantly changed the ways students learn, the ways teachers teach, andthe means with which both parties access information (Leidner & Jarvenpaa,1993; Starr, 1997). In a traditional classroom, students learn from thephysical delivery of lessons, which to a great extent depends on the teacher.In a virtual classroom, the delivery of lessons depends not only on theteacher but also on the technology used to deliver the teaching materials(Cyrs, 1994). With the increasing use of the virtual environment,technologies have become a critical component affecting teaching andlearning effectiveness (Alavi, 1994; Sankar, Ford & Terase, 1997); andstudents as well as instructors could become free from the time and spaceconstraints of having to be in the same physical room, at the same time(Althaus, 1997; Barnard, 1997).

A more significant way with which the Internet has changed thedynamics of teaching and learning is to make possible direct teaching overdistances. With this, a teacher could give instruction to students at any pointin time through the Internet without having to meet face-to-face. Althoughvideo-conferencing facilities can be used for this purpose, the cost of doingso is prohibitive because both the teachers and students need to invest in thesame set of specialized hardware and software. Moreover, the requirement ofdesignated point-to-point connection with video-conferencing excludes theflexibility of access ‘anywhere’ as with the Internet.

This situation has changed drastically with the latest developments inInternet video-conferencing capabilities (Gale, 1994; Jacobs & Rodgers,1997; Kaye & Medoff, 1999). With such capabilities, a teacher and herstudents located in different parts of the world can engage in a virtual classusing standard personal computers and very affordable off-the-shelfhardware and software requirements (Porter, 1997; Riel, 2000). Students areno longer subjected to the constraints of geographical barriers in their questfor knowledge. Teachers are no longer restricted by physical distances intheir attempt to give personal attention to students.

This paper illustrates the use of the Virtual Integrated Teaching andLearning Environment (VITLE) platform, which incorporates Internet video-conferencing, ICQ, and other interactive multi-media features in virtualclassrooms to maintain teaching and learning in Hong Kong when classeswere suspended due to the SARS outbreak.

Extending the Classroom 49

2 BACKGROUND

The outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome in Hong Kongforced kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, and universities tosuspend classes in March 2003 – which affected teaching and learningprogress significantly. To enable students to continue with the lessons duringthe class suspension period, the Department of Education Studies (EDUC)and the School Administration and Management System (SAMS) Trainingand Research Unit of the Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) launchedthe ‘Virtual Integrated Teaching and Learning Environment’ (VITLE), a freenew platform which breakthrough the limitations of physical classroomsduring the class suspension period. The idea to launch VITLE was initiatedby Dr. Alex Fung, Head of EDUC and Director of SAMS, and was madepossible within 48 hours with the support of a number of sponsoringorganizations2 from the business sector. Realizing the impact of such anunprecedented closure of schools on children and their families, the “ClassesSuspended but Learning Continues” Initiative was officially launched onApril 2003, enabling teachers to interact with their students and to conductlessons through the web (SCMP, 2003a; 2003b; 2003c). The goal of theInitiative was to provide a territory-wide solution urgently not only to bringthe disruption to kids’ learning to a minimum, but also to confine them in asafe environment at home away from the danger of the contagious epidemic.

The University developed VITLE as part of its e-learning infrastructuresince September 2002, and was due to conduct pilot tests in June 2003. Butafter the Hong Kong government decided to suspend classes in late March2003, the need to continue education over the Internet was evident. As an e-learning application, VITLE was made available to all primary andsecondary schools the day classes were suspended so that teachers could stayin touch with their students in virtual classrooms while schools were closed.About 75 schools and thousands of students took part in the initiative, whichalso attracted international attention. As journalist Benny Evangelista wrotein the San Francisco Chronicle on April 21, 2003, “The Hong Kong examplemay be the first instance in which online learning has been used to replacereal classrooms because of a major disruption in the education system.” (SanFrancisco Chronicle, April 21, 2003). Macromedia chairman and chiefexecutive Rob Burgess also said, “We are starting to see more and moreexamples of the Internet being used as a two-way communications medium,and Hong Kong Baptist University created a live virtual classroom wherestudents were able to see the teacher on the screen literally conduct the classthrough this difficult time.

2 The sponsoring organisations included the Hong Kong Daily News, CellwiseTechnologies Ltd., Macromedia Hong Kong Ltd., Microsoft HK Ltd., and PowerNetInternet Group.


Knowing that some schools might not be able to run their own virtualclasses for students, apart from providing the platform for schools tocontinue classes, the HKBU also launched the big virtual communityeducation hall “HKBU VITLE Class’ for all secondary and tertiary studentsas well as the general public. The number of registered participants withHKBU VITLE Class surged to 10,000 within the few weeks of operation.VITLE became one of the important communication channels for individualschools with their students during the outbreak of SARS in Hong Kong. Formore information about the HKBU VITLE Classes, please visithttp://www.ilearn.com.hk.

3 VITLE: ARCHITECTURAL OVERVIEW

The Virtual Integrated Teaching and Learning Environment (VITLE) is aweb-based platform providing simultaneously on one screen in real-timemode the following features in support of teaching and learning: VideoBroadcast (in three modes: teacher, teaching assistant, student), InteractiveQuestion and Answer, Whiteboard, and Slide Presentation. The teacher cancontrol the activation of the tools / features by clicking icons on the controlpanel. When a feature is turned OFF (by the teacher) the students will notsee that particular function. This virtual environment is designed to modeltraditional classroom settings so that teachers can adapt to e-Teaching easily.Figure 1 shows the Teacher’s View after logging in to a VITLE virtualclassroom with a presentation slide loaded.

Basically, VITLE provides an interactive virtual classroom for teachersand students to meet in cyberspace. Each party needs only a multimedia PC(with an optional web-camera) and access to the Internet and hundreds ofstudents can ‘enter’, i.e., log in to the room with the teacher together at thesame time. Inside a VITLE virtual classroom, the student learns in real time:

1.2.

3.4.

with the teacher explaining over a web-camera;with the slides shown by the teacher (with or without a transparencyoverlay);with an electronic whiteboard; andthrough Q&A with the teacher similar to ICQ

Students equipped with a web-camera can also present themselves, aschosen by the teacher, inside the virtual classroom. A Teaching Assistant /Invited Guest Speaker can join in to team teach as well when given accessby the teacher. Figure 2 below shows how the screen looks to a student.


Figure 1. A Teacher’s View inside the VITLE Virtual Classroom

Figure 2. A Student’s View inside the VITLE Virtual Classroom


The implementation for VITLE uses the capabilities and ease of use ofMacromedia Flash Communication Server MX 1.5 to provide unlimitedconcurrent access to all users. It comprises a web front-end which serves asan entrance to the platform, provides presentation files management, and ispowered by Macromedia ColdFusion MX 1.5. Other Macromedia productsused in conjunction included Macromedia Flash MX for connecting users toreal-time data exchange server provided by Flash Communication Server(FCS). Multiple users can connect to the same application running on FCSwhich acts as a communication channel between the connected users. Theweb front-end is built from Macromedia ColdFusion MX. The operatingsystem is Microsoft Windows 2000 Server with a Microsoft SQL 2000Server. The hardware consisted of two servers (PIII Xenon 550 x 4, 2GBECC RAM).

VITLE allows for real-time, synchronous interaction between teachersand students who logon together in virtual classrooms. A teacher who islogged-on to the virtual environment can immediately begin teachingwithout the need for additional downloads and program installations.Students could watch their teachers (or even other students, if they had webcameras) live. All that was needed for them was a Web camera, a computerwith Internet access, and a Macromedia Flash player (free software). As thestreaming technology advances, VITLE makes virtual meetings possibleanywhere at any time.

4 USER FEEDBACK

User feedback via telephone interview was collected from 9 schoolsusing the VITLE platform. At the user level, both teachers and studentsperceived the platform to be useful and convenient as they could access itfrom any computer with access to the Internet. In short, VITLE has providedthem access to learning like never before. They also preferred the platformbecause no special software and hardware equipment are required. However,they found some limitations with the platform. Some students commentedthat no ‘archives’ were available for downloading, so they were unable toview a missed programme. Another comment about the use of this platformwas the technology. The sound quality and the video clarity were some of theissues raised. Another limitation was the necessity of converting Power Pointslides to Flash files (in swf format). The Whiteboard, which only allowstexts and arrows, was also limited. according to the comments received.Transmission delay was also another problem.

At the school level, the principals commented that the platform wasrelatively easy to use and learn. They also found the stability to beacceptable, and thought the platform could be really interactive particularly


during remedial classes or tutorial sessions, or even as a communicationchannel between staff! They thought it had helped breakthrough thelimitation of time and space, and was effective since lessons could also beconducted outside school hours. Because of the audio-visual presentation,lessons were richer and more vivid so helping increase students’concentration span. Self-learning amongst students was also activelypromoted as a result of the opportunity provided by VITLE. The principalsalso mentioned that the platform helped enhanced teacher professionalismand confidence. It also provided them the opportunity to offer subjectsbeyond the school curriculum by integrating the use of IT. And since theyhave to prepare the materials before the session, teachers became more well-prepared and organised. Sharing also prevailed amongst the teachers, as theyconstantly discussed the subject matter.

However, some principals were concerned about the ‘presence’ of thestudents, and were unsure whether the students were ‘attending’ the lessonsor not. Principals also perceived the process of converting Power Point filesto ‘swf’ format as an additional workload and burden to teachers who werenot computer literate. They also complained about problems with theQuestion and Answer Tool. For instance, only the teacher can choose whichstudent’s question to respond to. Likewise, the teacher also controls whichstudent (and only one at a time) to appear live on screen. The students alsohad difficulty expressing themselves through written words, and were notfast enough in typing in the questions.

5 SUMMARY

The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) struck badly in anumber of regions in the world in 2003. The contagious and killing diseasethreatened and seriously interrupted different walks of life. In Hong Kongthe SARS outbreak forced the suspension of schools for the whole month ofApril 2003, which significantly affected the teaching and learning progressof more than a million students. To enable students to continue with lessonsduring the class suspension period, Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU)provided an e-learning solution to schools and teachers. Using virtualclassrooms accessible on the VITLE platform via the Internet, teachersconducted lessons with students in the safety of their homes. VITLE becameone of the important communication channels for individual schools to keeplearning going for their students, and was a prime source of e-Learning forthe community as well during the SARS crisis in Hong Kong.

VITLE was designed as an emergency alternative for schools tomaintain a certain degree of teaching and learning for their students whocould not physically attend classes during the SARS period. VITLE has also


enabled Hong Kong education community to respond quickly to classroomsuspension by providing an online learning community which allowedstudents to easily ‘attend’ classes with rich interactive functionality from thecomfort of their own homes. The power and potential of using IT ineducation, especially for e-Learning, has been demonstrated. However, ourexperience has also sharply reflected the problem of the digital divide – the‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ – since only students with IT facilities at home andaccess to the Internet could be benefited. The project has also provided atest-bed for a large number of teachers and students to experiment and reflectupon their ways of teaching and styles of learning. Teaching in a virtualclassroom is very different from that within a traditional classroom. Whatworks and what doesn’t for effective learning is yet very uncertain. Students’self-learning responsibility is undoubtedly a crucial factor, as they canchoose to easily log out from an uninteresting lesson.

Schooling in the traditional sense implies attending classes and learningfrom the face-to-face delivery of lessons, which requires teachers andlearners to be present physically at the same place at the same time. Incontrast, VITLE virtual classrooms enable teachers and learners to attendclasses in cyberspace, also interacting face-to-face, at the same time, butwithout having to be together at the same physical location. The VITLEplatform is an impressive example of creating a rich, multimediacommunications solution for e-Learning in virtual classrooms. Thistechnology leads to different ways of communicating and processinginformation between teachers and learners, bringing about the potential fornew forms of e-Teaching and e-Learning. It can be envisaged that thetechnology will be extended to applications of virtual rooms in a muchbroader sense for meetings of different kinds in cyberspace. In the not toodistant future, the owning of a private virtual room may become as commonas having an email account.

6 THE WAY FORWARD

The past decade has been a time of technological convergence. In thepast, audio, video, text and film were different media relatively independenton their own. But now they are made compatible through digitization, whichcan be woven together into a single presentation (Webster, 1998; Webster &Hackley, 1997). This paper demonstrates the promise of Internet video-conferencing technologies as a means for conducting distance education. TheVITLE technology opens up new opportunities for students to study when,where and how they want. It has the potential of enhancing the teaching andlearning experience through virtual classrooms. The platform is also asolution in ensuring that the continuity of teaching and learning is not


jeopardized in light of any unforeseen crisis. Given the widespreadavailability of low-cost personal computers, and the widespread use of theInternet, it is plausible that this mode of distance education may partiallyreplace face-to-face teaching sessions. The sessions can also become morestimulating since students can see or hear what is best for them, which inturn leads to a more efficient use of classroom time. More importantly, thebenefits of the technological capabilities can potentially extend beyondphysical classrooms to larger-scale distance education efforts.

ICT has permeated many aspects of education, and these technologieswill continue to impact education in the future. Such technologies cancertainly facilitate distance learning and teaching by helping to breakgeographical barriers. In the century when ICT is likely to play a criticalrole in enabling effective education, knowledge accumulated on existing andemerging technologies can guide us in terms of what technologies areappropriate under what circumstances. Rather than seeing technology as asolution to an existing problem, it is more fruitful to examine how thecollection of ICT may complement each other to open up new and excitingpossibilities for educating people.

7 REFERENCES

Alavi, M. (1994). Computer–mediated collaborative learning: An empirical evaluation. MISQuarterly, 18(2), 159–174.

Althaus, S. (1997). Computer-mediated communication in the university classroom: Anexperiment in on-line discussions. Communication Education, 46, 158 – 174.

Barnard, J. (1997). The World Wide Web and higher education: The promise of virtualuniversities and online libraries. Education Technology, 37(3), 30 – 35.

Cyrs, T.E. (1994). Essential skills for college teaching. Las Cruces, NM: New Mexico StateUniversity.

Gale, S. (1994). Desktop video conferencing: Technical advances and evaluation issues. In:Stephen A.R. Scrivener (Ed.), Computer-supported cooperative work: The multimedia andnetworking paradigm. Aldershot, England: Avebury Technical.

Jacobs, G., & Rodgers, C. (1997). Remote teaching with digital video: A trans-nationalexperience. British Journal of Educational Technology, 28(4), 292 – 304.

Kaye, B., & Medoff, N. (1999). The world wide web: A mass communication perspective.Mountain View, CA: Mayfield.

Leidner, D.E., & Jarvenpaa, S.L. (1993). The information age confronts education: Casestudies on electronic classrooms. Information Systems Research, 4(1), 24 – 54.

Porter, L.R. (1997). Creating the virtual classroom: Distance learning with the Internet. NewYork, NY: John Wiley.

Riel, M. (2000). The future of technology and education: Where are we heading? In D.M.Watson & T. Downes (Eds.), Communications and networking in education. Boston, MA:Kluwer Academic Press, pp. 9 – 24.

San Francisco Chronicle (2003). SARS crisis shows value of Internet education. Onlineplatforms mean lessons can continue while schools are closed. April 21, 2003 (SanFrancisco Chronicle).


Sankar, C.S., Ford, F.N., & Terase, N. (1997). Impact of video conferencing in teaching anintroductory MIS course. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 26(1), 67 – 85.

SCMP (2003a). Classes suspended but learning continues: HKBU helps to breakthrough classsuspension with VITLE. March 31, 2003 (South China Morning Post).

SCMP (2003b). Technology keeps classes open for more than 60 Hong Kong schools April18, 2003 (South China Morning Post).

SCMP (2003c). e-Learning brings classrooms to Hong Kong students. May 3, 2003 (SouthChina Morning Post).

Starr, R.M. (1997). Delivering instruction on the World Wide Web: Overview and basicdesign practices. Educational Technology, 37(3), 7 – 15.

Webster, J. (1998). Desktop video conferencing: Experiences of complete users, wary users,and non-users. MIS Quarterly, 22(3), 257 – 286.

Webster, J., & Hackley, P. (1997). Teaching effectiveness in technology-mediated distancelearning. Academy of Management Journal, 40(5), 1282 – 1309.

Systemic Reform Efforts in the U.S.

Role of Information Technology in Fostering Collaborationwithin New Partnerships

Christopher A. ThornUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison – Wisconsin Center for Education [email protected]

Abstract: While data-based decision making and decision support systems are makinginroads into educational management, the human capacity to evaluateprograms, curricula, and other reform efforts has not kept pace. The latestgeneration of collaborative systems that support knowledge exchange andexpertise location services hold great promise for building communitiesaround these issues and supporting emerging research capacity in schools anddistricts.

Key words: Collaboration, knowledge management systems, school reform.

1 INTRODUCTION

Much of the work being done on the roll of information technology inimproving school performance is in the area of data-based or data-drivendecision making. The rising importance of standardized test results innational-, state-, and local-level accountability has led to a new interest inusing individual level data generated for external reporting to guide localimprovement efforts. The concept of school and district report cards hasbeen taken to the next level in many places with interactive web sites thatallow external viewers to examine the performance of subgroups anddifferent accountability metrics. Data warehouse efforts within districts areattempts to put more instructionally relevant data into the hands of decisionmakers at all levels.

58 Christopher A. Thorn

What these efforts often neglect to acknowledge is that we already had apretty good idea of which groups are suffering from performance deficits.Improvement efforts have been the focus of many years of professionaldevelopment and curriculum reform. The U.S. National Science Foundationhas initiated a program area that combines lessons learned from a decade ofsystemic reform initiatives and from recent advances in research-basedteaching materials for K-12 education in STEM (Science, Technology,Engineering, and Math). This new program is called Math and SciencePartnerships and is intended to help bridge the gaps between state of the artresearch in STEM, leading education schools, and districts willing to adopthigh-strength curricula and changes in teaching practices directed at closingthe achievement gap between white and minority (particularly AfricanAmerican) students.

2 RESEARCH AGENDA

The research effort here is focused on the question of what support isneeded to build human capacity to use student and staff outcome data. Earlyefforts to support data-based decision making were founded on a philosophythat could be summed up as “build it, and they will come”. While there islittle argument that school data systems were inadequate to support gooddecision making based on performance measures (for student or staff), thecreation of these systems did not imbue decision makers with skills they didnot possess. This approach also did nothing to address the need to buildsocial networks around evidence to promote the diffusion and use ofsuccessful strategies. This gap has led my research and development work inthe direction of examining the role of collaborative (primarily web-based)technologies in providing the social space to build these communities andthe related skills.

The program I will be describing as a backdrop for this paper is theSystem-wide Change for All Learners and Educators [SCALE]. The SCALEpartnership is made up of two universities and four school districts. First,there are two large university research centers – the Wisconsin Center forEducation Research [WCER], University of Wisconsin-Madison and theLearning Research and Development Center [LRDC], University ofPittsburgh. Both of these partners bring different strengths to the partnership.WCER connects the partnership to the $600 million a year research base atUW-Madison - including leading centers for materials science, genetics,computers science, mathematics, and engineering. The LRDC has a outreacharm (the Institute for Learning [IfL]) that provides high-level technicalassistance to 12 medium and large school districts across the country. Its

Systemic Reform Efforts in the U.S. 59

approach, known as disciplinary literacy, is a holistic approach to teachingreform and related governance structures that is closely tied to the researchbase at the LRDC. This university partnership is supporting the developmentof new immersion curricula units in STEM subject areas that has as its goalthe opportunity for each student to have one or more experiences each yeardoing authentic, hands on science. The SCALE partnership at the districtlevel is made of two large districts – Los Angeles Unified School Districtand Denver Public Schools – and two medium-sized districts – MadisonMetropolitan School District and Providence School District.

There are several key differences in this new round of funded projectsthat makes this partnership different from previous systemic reform efforts.First, SCALE is not trying to create new teacher training and teacherprofessional development relationships with these districts. The IfL alreadyhas existing, strong ties to each district. Each district has already bought intothe professional development strategies of the IfL and is working with localcoordinators to adapt the IfL approach to local district standards andorganizational structures.

Second, UW-Madison is home to a number of large research efforts thathave at least a decade of experience developing K-12 materials as a part oftheir STEM research efforts. Madison also has ties to similar projects atother large research universities and can act as a clearing house for similarwork from other research teams.

Finally, the National Science Foundation has with its most recent roundof large grants ($35 million for five years), operationalized a neworganizational model for research coordination. In the past, grants wouldhave been made at this amount or less. Any university coordination orinteraction with more than one or two districts would have gone throughrelevant program officers at the National Science Foundation. The MSPprogram recognizes that coordination and cooperation at this level cannot beaccomplished with the NSF program officers as the bottleneck forinformation flow. In a sense, the NSF has delegated part of its managementauthority to the partnership. In fact, the governing agreement for thepartnership is not a traditional contract. It is called a cooperative agreementand is negotiated after the award is made. The negotiation process bothallowed the NSF officials to help refine the goals and gave the partners aclearer picture of what the metrics of success would be.

3 A CASE STUDY OF SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION

The primary study in the project is a case study of the implementation ofan enterprise-level knowledge management and expertise discovery system


across the leadership level of this partnership. As I said at the outset, there isa strong focus – particularly at the district level – on the use of achievementdata (both high stakes outcome data and interim measures) to track theperformance of states, districts, schools, teachers, and children. From theperspective of SCALE, this approach is clearly important. The partners mustbe able to evaluate the effectiveness of the interventions and bothintermediate test scores and high stakes results will provide much of the keydata for that work. However, there is a larger and more challenging problemon the other side of the partnership. The university units, school districtoffices, and funders do not share a single security environment and lack thetools necessary to support the complex interactions that would be necessaryfor them to achieve their goals. At this point, it is important to consider thecharacteristics of the partners from the point of view of their traditionalstrengths and ways of doing business.

The SCALE partnership is made up of two distinctly different groups.The organizational characteristics of these groups suggest that differentforms of interaction will be differentially effective and that incentives forengagement will have to reflect each member’s particular needs. In the caseof the R&D units – WCER and LRDC – the two units are engaged inresearch into the basic elements of educational sciences. We also see bothgroups using that research expertise to gain a competitive advantage in themarket of ideas (academic press, recruitment of faculty, getting researchgrants, etc.). There are areas in which two centers compete directly in thesame markets (NSF funding for math or systemic reform research) and areasin which we have very little overlapping interest such as the IfL’s teacherprofessional development programs and its presence in districts.

The second cluster of organizations is the districts. The literature oncollaboration would codify them more in the role of core customer in a closesupply-chain relationship. The districts actually have little in common sincethey serve different markets and in no way compete with one another. Thereare no strong, near-term links that tie these organizations to one another –aside from growing concerns about persistent gaps in test scores byrace/ethnicity. The long-term prospect of leveraging of successful modelsmay hold some appeal, but many districts find replication within their owndistricts to be enough of a challenge.

3.1 Characteristics of Successful Cooperative Ventures

In earlier (Thorn 1995) work, I have argued that successful collaborativeshave to focus first on defining the overlapping interest that members share.One of the ways this condition is met in SCALE is the agreement on thecommon problems – high dropout rates, low test scores in math and science


in urban districts, and widening performance gaps between whites and otherethnic/racial groups. This agreement on the challenge provides a sharedsense of threatened core values – equal education for all, issues ofcompetitiveness and success as a nation of large portions of the populationare undereducated, social and economic decay of urban centers are a few ofthe core concerns shared by all members. This act of defining shared valuesand concerns both creates a social place for engaging in the partnership’swork and says to everyone involved that other efforts by the members thatdo not fit with this common interest are not on the table for discussion.

The other important finding from this research was a short list ofcharacteristics of successful consortia. First, there had to be a smallleadership group that engaged in what is often called unconditional giving or(in economic terms) the commitment of resources beyond a level thatappears rational for short- to mid-term calculations. Second, there had to beformal, transparent agreements about methods for the organization of workin the collaborative space. This included training around meetingmanagement, conflict resolution, etc. This creation of a common workingculture was a key factor in helping members from different organizations tobe effective and productive after a short time. Members of one particularlysuccessful consortium described the importance of knowing how to interactwith others on his team and knowing they would all be interacting based onaccepted norms and procedures. This certainty kept conflict to a minimumand helped to keep meetings short and productive. This contrast to thepractices of their home organizations (computer and semiconductor firms)was quite striking for many members.

The creation of complex consortia of research units and school districtswill require new workflows for creating curriculum and teacher trainingmaterials. It will require new tools for coordinating geographically-distributed teams from different organizations. These new groupings willtranscend traditional hierarchical relationships within each partner and willhave no mechanisms for controlling the work of individual members. Rather,these new teams must be collaborative communities that focus on sharedgoals and that are motivated by those goals.

At the same time, each of the individual members of the collaborativewill also be creating new teams within their respective organizations thatwill be directly responsible to leadership. These teams will likely crossexisting organizational boundaries (discipline, sub-district, roles) and willneed additional support for their work, since traditional supports would bebased on the needs of their operational units and not reflect the needs of anew organization form.


3.2 A Comparison of Two Research-Based Systems

What this problem space calls for is a set of collaboration tools thatsupport group work and knowledge management in several forms. First,loose confederations of collaborators that are engaged in problem definitionand in creating new communities will need tools that allow for the creationof new affinity groups. One of the problems encountered by teams ofscientists as they begin coordination with science education and otherteacher education professionals is that neither group has clear understandingof who should be working with whom. Tools such as the FraunhoferInstitute’s Basic Support for Cooperative Work [BSCW] provide sharedfolders, discussion lists, tasks, and calendars for geographically-distributedteams.

An important aspect that is often overlooked, however, is its approach tocreating groups. BSCW supports the traditional method of forming groups inIT systems. One can create predefined groups as a manager and invite allappropriate members to join. This group is typically assigned to a particular,pre-defined directory structure. Another option, however, is for individualusers to invite others to their own work spaces to collaborate on smallertasks. This identification of and support for local affinity groups is apowerful addition to collaborative technologies and enables partnerships thatcoalesce and flourish outside of traditional hierarchies.

This feature is a key difference between BSCW and many othercollaborative environments that are only extensions/virtualizations ofexisting hierarchies. One of the strengths of BSCW in this area is aphilosophy of making membership in the environment explicit andsearchable. Openness is a default setting. While this design approach makescollaboration across teams within the same organization much easier, it alsomakes more complex forms of organization and the ability to hide groupsthat need protection from oversight or some form of anonymity very difficultto support. Sophisticated security models and support for complexorganizational forms exist at the other end of the tool spectrum. Thisemerging need for enterprise-scale collaborative tools encouraged me to starta new research initiative to find and implement a collaborative environmentdesigned around complex partnerships. This effort identified Intraspect1 as aleader in the field.

4 FINDINGS

While the initial research focused on BSCW, the ongoing work isfocused on the creation of collaborative work and presentation spaces in our


new Intraspect environment. We are now nine months into animplementation of this high-level collaboration, knowledge discovery, andexpertise location system. My team is in the midst of documenting theaffordances of the system for different forms of university-district-schoolpartnerships. The preliminary finding show identify four different featuresthat seem to be necessary to support the ongoing work across the differentmanagerial levels of the partnership as well as vital to the work of dispersedteams working on particular curricular areas.

4.1 Secure Space for Risk Taking is Vital in Districts withLow Trust between Groups

Teachers or building leaders taking advantage of new high strengthcurricula or other professionally challenging endeavors may see studentoutcomes decline in the first year of implementation. In a high stakesenvironment, this can be seen as risky behavior. Participants need a safespace to collaborate that cannot be observed by others above them in theschool or district hierarchy. At the same time, district leaders need to be ableto provide political and other social support to teams at a distance – perhapsin a school climate that is not open to change. The ability to create a securead hoc space for collaboration can also free participants from some of thechallenges of hierarchy.

4.2 Building Ties to Experts (and Expert Knowledge)

Intraspect and other KM systems can be seen as repositories for complexcollections and may capture tacit knowledge in the form of email exchangesand other informal data types. One aspect of KM support in which Intraspectexcels is the area of expertise identification. The metadata architecture andsearch engine preferences the association of individual with search terms.This makes it trivially easy to locate people associated with artifacts,concepts, or groups. When one searches, named users are always associatedvisually with all hits to make location easier. The search logic alsopreferences individuals in the system who are the owners of documents thatcontain the search terms. Multiple hits in documents introduced into thesystem by an individual will usually put the user in the top 10 hits. Thislinkage between artifacts and human expertise is a feature that SCALE isusing explicitly to foster connections and knowledge exchange betweengroups.


4.3 Building Custom Spaces for Work and Presentation

This complex partnership has multiple dimensions of membership –organization, knowledge domain, level in the hierarchy, etc. The work of anyindividual member will differ based on their role in any grouping of actors.In the case of district leaders, they have asked for presentation spaces thatdisplay current and planned activities that will be taking place in theirdistrict as well as staff and student outcomes from past events. Disciplinaryteams, on the other hand, want work spaces in which they can exchange andedit documents and manage complex workflows. Research and evaluationteams want workspaces organized around the projects deliverables. Theobject oriented design of the Intraspect system allows for the rapiddevelopment of custom spaces that explicitly support these differentconfigurations and needs. No district- or university-centric system couldprovide these services. This enterprise/supply chain problem space requiresspecialized tools to address the challenges faced by the SCALE partnership.

4.4 Object Oriented Design for Customization

As noted above, object oriented technology has proven to be a crucialelement of this implementation. The complexity of this research anddevelopment project with its tight links to school districts and their reformefforts means that we have many users who have multiple groupmemberships and may serve in multiple roles across those groups. Tools tosupport complex organizational models must respect this reality and providequick and easy access to information and work spaces based on complexmemberships.

5 CONCLUSION

The jury is still out on the effectiveness of the SCALE partnership. Whatseems clear, however, is the importance of providing collaborative supportto university-district-school partnerships that allow for secure access toexpertise and custom spaces. The National Science Foundation has reviewedthe progress to date and is working with my group to explore extending ourIntraspect environment to include members at the foundation. They haveidentified the lack of a collaborative environment as one of the biggestbarriers they face in helping these large research projects deliver on theirstated goals.


6 REFERENCES

Thorn, C. (1995). State Involvement in the Semiconductor Industry: The Role and Importanceof Consortia. Benevolent conspiracies: the role of enabling technologies in the welfare ofnations : the cases of SDI, SEMATECH, and EUREKA. H. Willke, C. P. Krück and C.Thorn. New York, Walter de Gruyter.

1 Recently renamed Vignette Business Collaboration Server after the firm waspurchased by Vignette Corporation in December 2003.

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Developing an Integrated School Information System

Greg BakerScotch College, Melbourne, [email protected]

Abstract: This paper describes some of the issues in developing an integrated schoolinformation system that contributes to the management of a school. Thesystem is based on an SQL relational database with a browser-based interfacefor all queries and transactions. The use of a standard interface makes it easyfor end-users to navigate what is, in fact, a complex system. The user input andself-service provisions are important aspects of this system. This paperdemonstrates that it is possible and feasible to develop an information systemin a school that meets the needs of staff and is customized for the users’requirements.

Key words: Educational management, school information system, integrated schoolsystem, information infrastructure.

1 INTRODUCTION

Pauline Wilson walks into her first class for the day at Scotch College.She carries her lightweight notebook computer that is already started andconnected securely to the school’s wireless network. She calls her class listup on the notebook screen, quickly marks the absentees and then clicks theUpdate button. The results are immediately stored on the school’sinformation system and are available to all those with authority to access it.Within minutes, accurate attendance records have been completed for all1,850 students in the school. Students taking music instrumental lessonshave been flagged, as have those going on an excursion to the Art Gallery.

Earlier in the day, the schools’ rowing crews finished their early morningtraining on the river and the students have headed to the pavilion forbreakfast. As they walk in the door, they pass their student cards under a

68 Greg Baker

barcode reader to record their attendance at breakfast. At the end ofbreakfast, the teacher in charge authorizes a batch account to be processedand the charge for breakfast will be added to the student’s next fee account.

2 INFORMATION NEEDS

Each school is different and has different information needs. Centrallydesigned systems can meet most of a school’s needs most of the time, but notalways. At Scotch College an information system that meets the needs of allthe staff has been developed. As those needs change, so does the system.Functions are developed in response to requests from staff. In some cases,needs are anticipated and catered for.

2.1 Goals of the System

The goals of the system are to provide:Accurate, up-to-date data.An interface that staff find easy to use.Access from a variety of locations – at a desk, in a classroom, on theschool oval, at home.Differing access rights to the data depending upon need.Designed so that it is integrated across the schoolSelf-service access to reports.

3 INFORMATION SYSTEMS AT SCOTCH COLLEGE

A computer-based information system was first considered at ScotchCollege in 1978. An initial definition of the information system wasprepared by the then Director of Computing and the Records Sub-committeeof the school (Graham, 1978). The document was “… an attempt to definethe records and information systems at Scotch College … and to give anaccurate and valid picture of our information system.” (Graham, 1978).

At that time, the primary source of information about current and paststudents was known as the “Blue Card”. The blue card was, in fact, a bluecard that was regularly added to by members of staff. The blue card becamethe definitive document that recorded a student’s progress through theschool. In the early 1990’s the blue cards were all transferred to microficheand they remain a primary source of historical data for the school.

At that time also, “… a file of names and addresses of people associatedwith the school was kept on the Melbourne Stock Exchange System. These

Developing an Integrated School Information System 69

records were the responsibility of the school’s alumni group – the OldScotch Collegians’ Association (OSCA). This file was to form the basis ofthe school’s information system.

The original coding specifications indicate that the school’s initialdecision was to develop the system using Cobol. However, when it came totime to carry out the development, the database chosen for use was DEC’sRelation Database (DEC Rdb) and the programming language was VAXBASIC (Graham, 1985). A relational database model was chosen for thereasons that have subsequently become standard textbook criteria including:

Minimization of duplication of data.Elimination of modification anomalies.Ease of data retrieval (Kroenke, 1983).Data consistency and accuracy.Multi level integrity (Hernandez, 2003).

With the increase in processing power available, the relational model hasproven to be most useful in this context.

3.1 The First System

The first system was developed internally and put into production in theearly 1980s. The hardware used was a DEC VAX 11/750 using DEC Rdb,VAX BASIC and a fourth generation programming language calledDatatrieve. The operating system was DEC’s VMS. The system was a menudriven one with different access levels provided for different staff. Terminalswere provided for all key staff and all teaching staff had access to theinformation system. Over a period of some 15 years, the system wasenhanced, supported and maintained internally. During that period, theschool had essentially one database that served the needs of the keyconstituents including:

Staff.Admissions.Alumni (OSCA).Fund raising (development).

A key benefit of the system was that an address update in one area of theschool was immediately reflected throughout the system and available to allauthorized users.

3.2 A New System

In 1996, Aspect Computing was engaged to advise on a replacement forthe above system. The key reasons for considering a change were:

70 Greg Baker

The need to “… record and track relationships between students andschool community members; andThe need to furnish the Development Office with appropriate toolsto assist in fund raising.” (Firkin, 1997).

Associated with changed needs were changes in the computer industrythat affected the choice of tools and platform. In particular:

DEC Computer Company divested many of its software tools toOracle, including DEC Rdb.DEC itself was taken over by Compaq Computer Company, whichwas later absorbed into Hewlett Packard.

The first system was built using exclusively DEC tools – hardware,software including operating system and development tools, as well assupport. The nature of the industry thus accelerated the need for change. Atthe same time, came an urgent need from within the school to develop asystem that enabled the electronic recording of attendances. Figure 1 belowshows the strategy used in terms of hardware, software and tools.

Figure 1: Information System Strategy

Other key reasons for developing the system internally included:No single externally produced software package met the school’sneeds.The school’s needs continually change and there was a need torespond to those changes in a timely manner.


The need for it to be supported on more than one platform (i.e.Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh).

At the time, most of the software packages that could be purchased ‘offthe shelf’ were not Web-enabled.

3.3 Designing a New System

A consultant from Aspect Computing assisted in the initial scope of theproject (Aspect Computing, 1997). Key requirements of the project were to:

Convert the existing school administration system to the newsystem with at least the same functionality.To have minimal impact on running of the school.To improve response times.To ensure that there was a standard user interface that wasacceptable to users.To add new, required functionality to the system.

A new logical data model was created and the existing database wasmapped into this new model. As noted by Tatnall and Davey (2001), theinvolvement of users is a key component of the success of a school system.Key users were consulted at each stage and helped specify the outcomes.Each of the various menu items was developed in response to a request froma member of staff – both teaching and non teaching. During 1998 the datastructures were defined, created and brought across to the new system. Thedata transfer was successful.

The first new application developed was to track student attendances.This was done in about five working days and the first version was put intouse at the start of 1999. The decision to use Allaire’s Cold Fusion as a rapidapplication development environment was taken after advice from a GartnerGroup consultant at Gartner’s Annual IT Expo in 1998. That decision hasproved successful but had some impact on staffing that is referred to later.

4 AN INTEGRATED SYSTEM

The system was designed to ensure that it was integrated across a rangeof levels and functions within the organisation. The system can track aperson from birth to death and beyond. The system is centred on a person asthe key entity. A person has many different attributes as he or she interactswith different facets of the school. A person can be:

A future studentA current studentA past student

72 Greg Baker

A future parentA current parentA past parentA future member of staffA current member of staffA past member of staff.

A person can have a number of those attributes at the one time (eg. a paststudent and a future parent). The previous system had used different entitiesfor a person – eg. a student was one entity and his parents were differententities with different attributes.

Once the person is created on the system, he or she may never be deleted.(The only deletions from the system are those future enrolees to the schooland their parents who never actually come to the school and have no otherassociation with the school.) At the time of writing, there were more than60,000 people on the system.

Figure 2: A person can have many different attributes.

4.1 Relational Database

The back-end system is a relational database made up of some 90different tables. It would be nice to claim that it is fully normalized but, inthe words of the database manager (Leon Seremelis), “It’s pretty good”. Therelational database structure minimizes the duplication of data and makes it


relatively simple to update that data.The data storage, retrieval and queryingis carried out using stored procedures in Microsoft SQL Server. The ColdFusion pages generate queries that have been created by users. That is, theusers can often decide on the type of data required.

4.2 Updating Addresses

One of the key challenges is to keep address and contact details up-to-date and accurate. Address changes come from a variety of structures withinthe organization: The can come from:

TeachersReceptionAdmissionsAlumniFund raising.

The following assumptions are made about addresses:Each person can have three addresses:

HomePostalBusiness

A number of people can have the same address.When an address is updated, the user is given the choice to make the

change for:That person only, orThe other persons at that address.

The system automatically shows all the other people who have the sameaddress. Once the address is changed, it is immediately reflected throughoutthe system. For example, a parent’s address change is immediately reflectedin information looked at through the student view of the system.

5 BROWSER-BASED

An important aspect of the system is to make it easy for staff to use. Adecision was made very early in the development process that user accesswould be via a browser-based system.

74 Greg Baker

Figure 3 Moving from a text based system to web based system.

The standard browser used is Internet Explorer –an interface that all staff had become familiar with inusing the Internet. One of the design goals was tomake the system easy to use and easy to navigate. Abrowser-based system at the front-end poses somechallenges in developing transaction-based databasesin that interactions are stateless until a transaction iscommitted. The system that has been developed usesMicrosoft SQL Server as the back-end database andMacromedia Cold Fusion as middle ware to providethe browser front-end.

The client or staff computer makes an HTMLrequest that is sent to the Cold Fusion Server. Thistranslates it into an SQL query that is forwarded tothe SQL Server. The data is returned to the ColdFusion Server and then presented in the browser tothe user. Staff are able to access a wide range of datathat is of use and to download appropriate data formail merge or personal use.

Figure 4 Microsoft SQL Server and Cold Fusion

6 MODULES AVAILABLE

The following are the key modules available:Student

ClassesSportsActivities


Learning difficultiesReporting

TeachersClassesExcursionsTrips

AttendancePeopleAccountsBookroomAlumniFund RaisingEnrolmentsPersonnel

The following modules are planned for future development:Music SchoolSwap shopSporting Team Management

The modules and functionality are developed in response to requestsfrom staff– both teachers and non teachers.

7 ACCESSIBLE ANYWHERE

The data is accessible throughout the school campus for all staff. Eachmember of the teaching staff is provided with a notebook computer and anEthernet connection at his or her desk. That connection provides access tothe administrative network.

There are some 32 wireless access points throughout the campusproviding access to the student network. Using a Cisco VPN Concentrator,staff can securely access the administration network and check class rollsand access all the information normally available at their desks. The CiscoVPN software includes a personal firewall on each staff member’s notebookcomputer. At home, staff can access the information via the school’s portalpage using the Internet. Users are authenticated via the firewall and SSLencryption is used of queries and transactions.

The system is available to all staff, anywhere in the school. Access rightsvary according to need. A limited number of staff are able to updateinformation. Again, this is based on the member of staff’s needs.

76 Greg Baker

8 SELF-SERVICE ACCESS TO REPORTS

The provision of self-service access is of key importance in givingcontrol to the users. Typically, the user provides the criteria for selection andthe query is processed by the system. A range of files can be downloaded foruse on the staff members’ computer. In particular, class lists, sporting listsetc can be downloaded.

Communication with students and/or parents can be done by email –classes or other groups can be emailed from within the system. Immediatelya class is changed for any reason, the email list dynamically changes. Theneed to alter groups in a Microsoft Exchange server is not required. Staff candownload files based on their selections to be used in mail merge documents.A large range of standard merge fields is provided and these can be used indocuments and mailing labels. Templates are provided for the mailing labels.

One of the outcomes of this process is that staff are not reliant oncentrally produced reports or documents but are able to generate thesethemselves when they need them.

9 SYSTEMS INTEGRATION

There are, of course, other database systemsoperating within the school. These are being integratedinto the architecture of the system so that updatesbetween systems are made when required. One suchexample is the development of the school’s timetable.Timetabling is a complex and specialized function.Rather than re-inventing the wheel, a timetablingpackage is used. In this case, student data is sent to thetimetable package, student choices are entered into thatpackage and a timetable is created. The timetable datais then sent back to the main information system. Thetiming of this is at the discretion of the person in chargeof the timetable (i.e. in the hands of the key user).

Figure 5: School Information and Timetable System.

A second example of system integration is helpdesk software called Heat from Front Range. This isalso SQL based and a help desk call looks up the dataabout users on the Scotch Information System and pulls it into Heat. Thus,user data is maintained in one source, the SIS, but help desk functionality


remains in Heat. Systems integration is a key issue for the future as weinvestigate further on line services and individual portal interfaces for staff,student, parents and alumni.

10 USER INTERFACE

The user interface is designed to:Make it intuitive for users to find information.Provide links to relevant information.Make it easy to carry out every day tasks.Be consistent.

Figure 6: Information about a student

Figure 6 shows part of the user interface. The following are importantparts of the design:

Menus across the top as hyperlinks.Menus at the left, also as hyperlinks.Query window – student number etc.

The result of the query is in the right side of the window (partially shownin figure 6).

In Figure 7 it can be seen that a range of information is available byclicking on the hyperlinks. This is typical of the system – a vast amount ofinformation available for all those who need to access it.

However, as the system has grown the menus have become somewhatclumsy in places and a new design is being implemented. Figure 8 shows afirst version of that design that will be tested with users beforeimplementation.

78 Greg Baker

Figure 7: Further information about a student

Figure: 8 A new interface


11 BUILDING LINKS WITHIN THE COMMUNITY

The next key steps are to build links with the school community. Thesystem currently provides personalized access for staff members, based ontheir login details and their position within the school.

The future involves development of the web interface and providingaccess to both students and parents when and where they need it.These groups can expect to have access to secure, personalised access:

Student reports.Forthcoming events.Sporting activities and teams.Sports results.Activity sign-on.Fee account status, approval and payment.

The challenge is to ensure that these functions are:Developed using agreed standards.Communication is secure and encrypted.Integrated with specialized systems provided by third parties.

12 CONCLUSION

This system was one of the first, if not the first, school administrationpackages developed in Australia using only a web front end for all users.This provides users with a familiar, intuitive interface that is easy tonavigate. The user self-service provisions give control to users over whatthey need and when they want it. The system meets the needs of anindividual school but could be developed to meet the needs of a wider rangeof schools.

The future integration into homes provides an exciting school/homeinterface that will improve communication and help the school to better meetthe needs of its students and parents.

13 REFERENCES

Aspect Computing, (1997). “Scotch College Administration System Scope Issue 1.0”, 10December 1997, internal publication.

Baker, G. M. (1997). “Information System Strategy”, November 1997, internal document.Firkin, H. (1997). “Scotch College School Administration System Proposal Issue 1.0”, Aspect

Computing Pty Ltd, 31 October 1997.Graham, J. D. and the Records Sub-committee of Scotch College (1998), “Definition of the

Information System of Scotch College, Melbourne”, 1978, internal publication.

80 Greg Baker

Graham, J.D. (1985) – in conversations from the mid 1980s.Hernandez, M. J. (2003) “Database Design for Mere Mortals”, ed, Addison-Wesley, USAKroenke, D. (1983). “Database Processing edition”, Science Research Associates, USA.Rees, M, White, A, White, B, (2001). “Designing Web Interfaces”, Prentice Hall, USA.Tatnall, A. and Davey, B. (2001). Open ITEM Systems are Good ITEM Systems. Institutional

Improvement through Information Technology in Educational Management. Nolan, P.Dordrecht, The Netherlands, Kluwer Academic Publishers: 59-69.

Computerised School Information Systems Usage inan Emerging Country - Uganda

Ronald Bisaso and Adrie VisscherDepartment of Educational Organisation and ManagementFaculty of Behavioural Sciences, University of Twente, The Netherlands

Abstract: This paper describes an exploratory study on the usage of computerised schoolinformation systems (CISs) in the administration and management of thebiggest secondary schools in Uganda. The field of information technology ineducational management (ITEM) has been mostly confined to the developedcountries that its potential in the developing countries in regard to its usageand implications on the schools that use it has not been studied (Bisaso, 2003).The literature reveals that developing countries are lagging behind in the useof CISs partly because of the resource constraints in skilled expertise, finance,and computer equipment (Visscher, 2001). But this magnitude of inferiority inschool administrative computing has not been proven hence this study. Theresults of this exploratory study reveal that the CISs in Uganda are mainlyused for clerical purposes while managerial usage by school managers is verylimited. Relevant factors relating to the effective use of the CISs are identified.Users are generally positive on the effects of CISs use. It is concluded thatwider and better CIS usage would be promoted by carefully designed usertraining grounded on a thorough analysis of the needs of the user group.Moreover, the support of the systems administrator is considered vital as acatalyst of CIS usage. A comparative summary with earlier studies in thedeveloped countries is made.

Key words: Computerised school information systems (CISs), information technology ineducational management (ITEM), school processes, management of schools.

1 INTRODUCTION

Information technology in educational administration and management(ITEM) of secondary schools in developing countries in general and Uganda

82 Ronald Bisaso and Adrie Visscher

in particular is a relatively new field that not only needs in-depth study onsystem utilisation in schools but also on effects on the school processes andmaybe outcomes. This is a concept that needs to be systematically embracedand studied in its genesis or initiation so as to come up with an advanceddesign of a CIS for schools in Uganda. Moreover, this can be a starting pointfor further research on ITEM in other developing countries providing aconcrete generalisation. Uganda in the last 6 years has had a dramatic rise inthe numbers of the primary school leavers, for instance in 2002 thecandidates were over 0.45 million expected to rise to 1.6 million in 2004(British council, 2003). The 2002 ministerial policy statement notes thatthere has been a pleasant effect of now attaining an enrolment of 7.2 millionpupils in primary schools. Consequently, the pressure on secondary schoolsin Uganda has been mounting over the years and is likely to increase. This isan outcome of the ever-increasing numbers of primary school leavers joiningsecondary education that it is worthwhile to invest in CISs so thatinformation handling that requires somewhat sophisticated means, and whichcan be provided by the computer, is more efficient. Through establishmentof a central database time may be saved because there can be multiple usageof the same data by all the school staff, and prevention of errors which mayhave occurred as a result of repeated registration of data by various staff(Visscher, 2001). This improved efficiency can be manifested in schooleffectiveness with a likelihood of having a better attainment of the schoolgoals. It is likely that the number of young school managers in Uganda willrise beyond what it is today. In the yesteryears most school managers wereabove 40 years, the trend is that most are now below 35 years. This isbecause of the mismatch between the available very experienced teachersand the numbers of schools being put up today. For instance, Ministry ofEducation and Sports (1999:5, in Aguti, 2002) reports that in 1999, Ugandahad 625 secondary schools but by the year 2001, the number had almosttripled to 1850 secondary schools (Ministry of Education and Sports, 2001 a:3, in Aguti, 2002). It is thus crucial for these increasing relatively noviceschools managers to make informed decisions that can be based on theschool information system, which in addition also provides guidance onmanagement activities. Visscher (2001) notes that the information systemcan also help to signal that certain aspects of schooling require attention. Forinstance, if certain standards have been defined in advance, such as thepercentage of low marks within a class is too high, and transcribed intosoftware, the computer can provide a warning to school managers if thestandards are not being met. This may improve process control, lead to moretimely corrective actions, and to a more effective school.


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1.1 Organisation of Education in Uganda

The existing structure of the Ugandan education system has been in forcesince the early 1960s. In 1989, a commission was appointed by thegovernment to review the entire education system and made proposals andrecommendations famously known as the Kajubi report. The governmentaccepted the recommendations in 1992 culminating into the GovernmentWhite paper- Education for National Integration and Development.Government then produced a master plan for the Education sector. The planconstitutes an action-based approach to the implementation of the educationpolicies formulated in the 1992 white paper. (Odaet, 1995)

The Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) has got the managerialand administrative mandate to centrally run the education system. The MoEShas a Minister of Education and Sports as its political head assisted by the 3Ministers of State; in charge of Primary Education, Higher Education, andSports. There is a Permanent Secretary (PS) who is the overall accountingofficer for the ministry. The Commissioner for Education Planning and anUndersecretary in charge of Finance & Administration assist the PS. TheDirector of Education oversees the activities of six out of the eightdepartments of the ministry, each headed by a Commissioner. The eightdepartments of the MoES include; Finance and Administration, EducationalPlanning, Pre-primary and Primary Education, Secondary Education, HigherEducation, Teacher Education, Special Needs and Careers Guidance, andBusiness Technical and Vocational Education Training Department. Inaddition, there are semi-autonomous institutions that execute certainresponsibilities on behalf of and in liaison with the MoES. These include theNational Council of Sports (NCS), Uganda National Examinations Board(UNEB), National Council for Higher Education (NCHE), NationalCurriculum Development Centre (NCDC), Universities, and UgandaNational Council for UNESCO and the Education Service Commission(ESC).

1.2 Structure of the Ministry and its Departments

In line with the overall government of Uganda decentralisation policy,education sector functions decentralised are recruitment, deployment ofprimary school teachers, implementation of UPE and the school constructionprogram. The implementation of these decentralisation programs is howeverhampered because it has to fit in the general sector guidelines issued by thecentre. The School Management Committee, with the head teacher as itssecretary, oversees school policy formulation and implementation. Its


activities include supervising school budgets, reviewing educationperformance, overseeing student and staff discipline and making plans forschool facilities expansion and repair. Head teachers draw up monthlyreports to the District Chief Administrative Officers and forward a copy tothe school management committee’ chairperson (The Ugandan Experienceof UPE, 1999).

Figure 1: Source: Ministerial Policy Statement 2002


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2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND RESEARCHFRAMEWORK

The study is guided by the following specific research questions, whichhave been formulated with regard to the variable clusters in the Visschermodel (1996; 2001).

What computerised school information systems (CISs) are used insecondary schools in Uganda?To what extent and how are these CIS used in secondary schools inUganda?What is user opinion of the CIS quality?How were the CISs implemented?What were the relevant features of the schools into which they wereintroduced relatively successfully?What are the positive and/or negative effects of CIS usage?Which factors prove to have a relationship with degree of CIS usage?How can computerised school information systems and/or their usein secondary schools in Uganda be improved?

The study in this paper explores the usage of CISs in administration andmanagement of secondary schools in Uganda using selected variables in theVisscher model (1996; 2001) on the factors determining the usage andimpact of CISs in developing countries. While the Visscher model has beenused in developed countries (Visscher 1999; 2003), its feasibility in thedeveloping countries is tested in this study. Visscher notes that four factorsdetermine the level of use of CISs and their effect in schools namely the CISdesign strategy, CIS quality, implementation process features, and schoolorganisation features. Most developing countries have not evolved a uniformCIS used in all the schools. On CIS quality, each system is used andappreciated in accordance with the perception of its users towards itsfeatures. Hence the use of a particular system is dependent on itsapplications, some of which the school staff may or may not use (Fung andVisscher, 2001). Fung (1995) and Visscher and Fung (2001) point out thatthe initiation phase in an innovation process is essentially related tocommitment among the innovation users and their perception of the addedvalue accruing from embracing the change. Like in many other attempts atchange, the time variable is needed for sufficient understanding of thereasons for the change otherwise it is rejected. Riggs (1964, in Kereteletsweand Selwood, 2003) notes that in a prismatic society, it is not easy for oldpractices to give way to new or modern practices emphasising the timevariable. Moreover, there is not a replacement of old practices by new onesbut a displacement. Fung (1991) and Bird (1991) cited in Visscher (1995)

1.

2.

3.4.5.

6.7.8.


argue that if the architect of the change process is supportive, that itssuccessful implementation is guaranteed; and the same is just true if theschool management does likewise. Moreover, with the wealth of expertise ofCIS administrators, use of the system is expected to be impressive especiallythrough their just-in-time assistance to the system users (Fung and Visscher,2001). Visscher (1995) has presented user training as a factor that influencesthe implementation process of the CISs. Marx (1975, in Visscher, 1996b)points out that schools vary in their policy-making capacity, and that theareas in which schools develop their policies often differ in degree. It is thisdivergence in policy-making capacity that will strongly impact on theinitiation of CISs in school policy making.

3 METHOD AND DATA ANALYSIS

The research is grounded on a sample survey. Uganda has fifty-sixdistricts from which a selection of four neighbouring districts was made forconducting the sample survey. The researchers using a non-probabilitysampling technique identified 55 schools whose type and size, suggested thatthey could be using computers in school administration and management. Itis evident that the majority of the biggest and well-developed schools inUganda are located in the central districts of Kampala (the capital), Wakiso,Mukono and the neighbouring eastern district of Jinja; consequentlyqualifying as an area for drawing a sample for this study. Most importantly,innovations begin at the centre and spread to the periphery, hence theresearchers thought that the field of ITEM being a recent innovation indeveloping countries to which Uganda belongs, it might not be spread overthe whole country. Each participating school was sent one questionnaire,which was to be completed separately by one of the school managementpersonnel namely the head teacher (principal), the deputy head or deputyprincipal, director of studies or any person knowledgeable about the CIS.The response rate was 100% after follow-up activities. Descriptive statisticswere applied, namely frequencies and cross tabulations, corresponding to theselected variables studied in the Visscher model (1996; 2001). Moreover, aregression analysis was done on those variables considered to most predictCIS usage so as to confirm a linear relationship between the factors studied.The five selected variables cover aspects of the quality of CISs, features ofthe implementation process, and the characteristics of schools in which CISshave been implemented relatively successfully. Respondents’ scores weretransformed into normalised scores, allowing their mutual comparison, andthereafter variables assumed to meet the linear criteria on system usage were


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entered into stepwise regression analyses on the use of CISs by schoolmanagement personnel.

4 RESULTS

The survey mainly focused on fifty-five big and well-developedsecondary schools in Uganda. It is astonishing that 38% of the selectedschools (22% government-aided and 16% private schools) declaredthemselves non-users of CISs perpetuating the notion that developingcountries like Uganda are advancing at snail-pace in regard to ITEM.Despite this relatively low turnout, optimism was restored by a total ofthirty-four schools (a user response rate of 100%) responding to the surveyof whom 56% were privately owned and 44% government-aided, allreturning well-filled questionnaires acceptable to the researchers. Schoolswith 500-1000 students on roll were 54% and schools having over 1000students on roll were 46%. Follow up from the researchers notwithstanding,it was impossible to increase the response rate because all responded. Due totime and financial constraints, the researchers decided to focus on responsesof the CISs users from the thirty-four schools because the selected andtherefore research schools represented the whole range of schools in thepopulation using the CISs based on their size and type. Moreover, withoutobtaining results from and paying attention to these (part of) selected schoolsin Uganda, such a study, in all probability, would be unfeasible. We nowadapt the results to the research questions in section 2.1 above.

4.1 Computerised School Information Systems Used

The findings reveal that there is a variety of CISs that are used insecondary schools in Uganda, which are both locally and externallydeveloped. It is interesting to note that over 70% of the systems used arelocally developed either by commercial software vendors (74%), or theschool staff (18%), or individuals with knowledge in computer programming(8%). The locally developed systems are called ledger works, sysplus, schoolmanagement information system, student information management system,school management system, accounting s/w, dehezi and the multi-usercomputer system. Some of the local systems developers include Kampalacomputer centre, and individuals with knowledge about computerprogramming. Software programmes reportedly used as CISs in someschools include Microsoft products like Access, Excel, Word, and MicrosoftMoney and Office automation systems, or End User computing system from


the U.S.A. Other externally developed CISs include Smart force trainingfrom India.

4.2 Degree of CIS Usage

Eight CIS-modules were identified which included student records,student assessment, student attendance, staff records, timetabling,programme schedule, financial monitoring and planning, and librarymanagement. Table 1 illustrates percentages of respondents reportingwhether the modules are included or not included in the CISs used. Theresults portray that the most common modules on any CIS are financialmonitoring and planning, student records and student assessment. The leastavailable modules are library management and student attendance.

A further analysis of the extent of use shows a large percentage of use ofthe most common modules of CISs to support managerial decisions.


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In Table 2, results on frequency of module usage to support managerialdecisions portray that, 43% and 13% of the respondents use ‘financialmonitoring and planning’ every week, and once a year respectively. ‘Studentassessment’ is the most commonly used module every month with 31%respondents.

The ‘programme schedule’ is most used a few times a year by 40% andfinally, the ‘library management’ module with 50% of respondents notingthat they never used it at all for supporting managerial decisions. Thefinancial monitoring and planning module is the most commonly usedmodule, and student assessment is procedurally used every month tocompute students’ monthly test scores.

Table 3 shows the percentage of school management personnel using theCISs in hours per month. Of the 100% respondents in the sample, 60%indicated that they both directly and indirectly used CISs with variation intime of use. The questionnaire defined former as using the system oneself(school managers) and indirect use as use of information (mainly printouts)


received from other staff using the system.The data in Table 3 below illustrates that the time investment for the

direct use of the CISs is highest ranging between 1-10 hours per monthimplying less time in indirect use. On the other hand, the levels of indirectuse are significantly higher between 11-30 hours per month. Even for thecategory ‘greater than 30 hours’ it is reasonably higher than direct use. Thisis an illogical result for a school manager but it is offset by the fact that therespondents were mainly heads of the computer studies departments inschools (an average of 59%) implying that they were knowledgeable aboutthe available CIS. The other respondents namely the head teachers orprincipals, the deputy heads, and the director of studies constituted of 12%,14%, and 15% respectively. This indicated that perhaps the head teachers orprincipals rarely directly used the systems available in their schools butfrequently depended on the printouts provided by other users.

4.3 Perceived CIS Quality

This research question concerns opinions of the school managementpersonnel on quality of CISs. On the question of whether the systemprovides information they need 12% replied that it does a little, 50% to somedegree, 27% much and only 11% said it very much provides this. About 70%of respondents expressed the opinion that their systems always worked. Ofthe remaining 30%, 64% had one to three system problems a month and 36%has between four and seven problems.

Users have the following opinion (Table 4) on several aspects of thequality of data retrieved from CISs. Over 75% of respondents consider theaccuracy of the data to be (very) good and so do respondents between 50%


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to slightly above 70% on other aspects such as up-to-date information,completeness of information, management support capacity, on-screenretrieval and print out speed. School managers ranging between 10-35% areneutral on all the attributes of CIS data quality, yet according to 5-25%;retrieved CISs data is (very) poor.

4.4 Process of Implementation

Research question four refers to the features of the implementationprocess through which the CISs have been introduced into the selectedsecondary schools in Uganda. Of all the respondents, 12% did not receiveany training to use the CISs, 41% were trained for 1-4 hours, 30% of theusers received between 5-20 hours of training to use the CISs while only17% were trained for more than 30 hours.

Pertaining to problems with the CISs, 21% of the respondents were(very) unhappy about the ease with which they get help from within theschool in case of difficulties, and 41% reported that it was (very) hard to gethelp from outside school. Generally, 60% of the CISs users often to veryfrequently solicit help from the system administrator. Similarly, 30-50% useself-support (work on the problem themselves) or seek assistance fromcolleagues within the school. On the contrary, approximately 60% of theschool managers very rarely used support from the external colleague and/orthe user manual/guide as sources of help. Concerning the extent to which thegoals for the introduction of the CISs are clear, 88% noted they were very


clear, In addition, 62% indicated that the means and activities by which thesegoals could be met are very clear, and 32% remaining neutral.

4.5 School Organisational Features

When the CISs were first introduced in schools, only 12% of therespondents did not expect the system to help them in their jobs. Over 80%of the schools used manual systems prior to the installation of the CIS andonly about 15% of the schools had other CISs. An inquiry into the level ofmotivation to work with the system revealed that 62% were (very) motivatedand 12% (very) unmotivated when the CIS was first introduced in theirschools. Experience in using computers either at home or work is generallylow.

4.6 Effects of CIS Usage

The use of the CISs has had several effects at school level. Table 6presents some of the outcomes and it can be observed that higherpercentages are registered on the positive side starting with 40%-60% ofrespondents indicating insight into how the school functions had improved.Over 80% of the respondents reported (much) better evaluation of schoolperformance. Utilisation of school resources (over 60%), information forcurriculum planning (53%), and between 20-50% on internal communicationwith colleagues was better. However, it is only internal communication withcolleagues that registered a reasonable negative percentage of about 23%.Stress (66%) and workload (69%) have lowered through using the CISs

Note: the table does not contain the percentages for the ‘same’ responsecategory. The difference between 100% and the sum of the percentages for


93

the positive and the negative answers concerns the percentages ofrespondents who neither observed an improvement nor deterioration.

4.7 Factors Related to Extent of CIS Usage

This research question focuses on the factors that have a relationship withthe magnitude of CISs usage in Uganda. On closer scrutiny of how far thedegree of CIS usage is determined by (some of) the influential factors in theVisscher model (1996a; 2001); those that the researchers identified as themost potential predictors of CIS usage were entered into regression analyseson direct and indirect use. Five variables were selected that included startmotivation, computer experience, training, information quality and supportfrom the systems administrator. The first four variables were based on earlierstudies done which reported that they are predictors of CISs (Visscher et. al.,1999; 2003). Support from the systems administrator is considered becauseUganda being a developing country and ITEM being a new field, direct usersneed immediate help. Upon computation, three variables were considerednon-predictors of CIS usage in Uganda and consequently excluded from the


model on both direct and indirect use. These variables are start motivation,information quality and computer experience. It is the implementationfactors of amount of training and support from the systems administrator thatpresent proof of explanation of variation in direct use by the schoolmanagement personnel as illustrated in Table 7.

The results in Table 7 indicate that thirty-five percent of the differencesin the extent of the school management personnel direct CIS usage areexplained by the variances in the variables ‘amount of training’ and the‘support from the systems administrator’. Overall, the latter variable hasproven to be the most powerful explanation of variation in CISs use as isalmost twice as influential as the former (.39 versus .61).

5 CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION

The findings in this exploratory study portray the fact that ComputerAssisted School Administration (CASA) in secondary schools in Uganda isjust approaching the initiation stage in CIS development (Visscher, 2001).This is well-illustrated by 38% of the selected schools that are non-userseven in these districts with most of the well-developed schools in Uganda,which indicates that it would be even worse in the poorer districts.Moreover, the basic usage available is concentrated on clerical work.

Developing countries have lagged behind in school administrativecomputing (Visscher, 2001). However, 70% of the CISs in Uganda arelocally developed and commercial software vendors comprise 74% of thedevelopers. With this trend, one could suggest that the future of CISs in


95

Uganda is promising and that for the other developing countries, ad hoc CISscan be developed without multi-million investments.

The CIS quality is low; only one third note that CISs provide theinformation they need perhaps due to lack of a common design strategy. Onthe process of implementation of CISs, user training was limited, forexample, about 12% of the users received no training and 41% were trainedfor 1-4 hours to use CISs. Respondents were (very) unhappy with theaccessibility of internal and external help. Most of the respondents (60%)sought help from the systems administrator while some solved the problemsthemselves. Computer experience was quite low being a symptom of the lessvigorous use of information technology in developing countries. The level ofindirect use is higher than direct use (only 1-10 hours per month).

Respondents are (very) positive on effects of CISs. Evaluation of schoolperformance and school management were reported (much) better. Itremains to be verified if the findings hitherto highlighted can scientificallyhold and whether other factors apart from mere CIS usage are important, ifnot equally important. Computers as tools that simplify work is indisputablebut may not wholly be responsible for the school improvements noted above,otherwise all schools having CISs would be impeccably the best performers.

Support from the systems administrator and amount of training arefactors that explain the observed variance in the direct usage of CISs insecondary schools in Uganda. It is therefore worthwhile that any investmentin design and implementation of CISs considers increasing the amount oftraining for the intended CIS users, and hiring the services of systemsadministrators in schools where CISs are introduced.

Comparatively, studies on CIS usage in Hong Kong, Netherlands, and theUnited Kingdom (Visscher studies) have revealed that the degree of CISusage is by large for clerical purposes. The direct and indirect use of theCISs in the Visscher studies varies with the system administrator and clerksscoring high on direct use while principals are more of indirect users. Theresults in the Ugandan study are not any different from these findings.

Moreover the Visscher studies returned training as a relevant variable,possibly because it can be used to motivate the target group to use thesystem and clarify the goals and methods of the innovation process (Fung et.al., 2002). Much as the study in Uganda notes that amount of training is animportant factor determining direct use; it also echoes the support from thesystems administrator as an extraordinary implementation factor. This lattervariable has not been proven its significance in the Visscher studies butHaughey (2003) reports that Telem (1997) focussed his study on the newrole of the school computer administrator. Haughey further notes that incomparably large high schools, a site technologist was often hired to deal


specifically with the network and its applications, marking unusual data andchecking if these data were followed up. This partly presents a defensibleground for the Ugandan finding.

In the Visscher studies, the systems administrator is second to the userssolving the problems themselves. In the Uganda study, the systemsadministrator is the leading source of help partly explained by the naivety ofthe school managers in computer operation. Indirect use in the Ugandanstudy has not been explained by any factor, unlike in the Visscher studies.

It is recommended that the critical factors (amount of training andsupport from the systems administrator) are cautiously nurtured especiallythe remarkably determinant factor of training which is reported to have beena prevalent issue in evaluation of information technology systems in industryand commerce (Visscher et. al., 1999; 2003). The system administrator in theschool, for instance, is very knowledgeable about the system and itscomponents, and able to provide basic training to the school managers onhow to use the system. Training should cut across technical competenciesand practical capabilities to managerially use the retrieved data. However, itmay demand additional expenses for the already hard-earned CISs, the mostappropriate solution being to design and develop robust or less faultysystems with packages of electronic performance support systems fromwhich the users incrementally seek knowledge.

Design and development of a comprehensive school information systemcomprising numerous modules and/or reports/lists that will be to a largeextent, uniform to all schools. But this requires commitment of colossalsums of money, which developing countries may not readily have.Alternatively, governments of developing countries like Uganda could optfor importation and adaptation of sophisticated CISs from the developedcountries to specific features of their school contexts. This may save moneyand time required in evolving a formidable CIS.

Finally, this exploratory study projects that if these recommendations aremet, the probability that CISs usage will increase is very high. It isspeculated that the findings of this study will stimulate further research on awider population and in other developing countries for more authenticgeneralisations. Moreover the study has shown that the variables in theVisscher model are relatively appropriate for testing CISs usage and itsimpact on secondary schools in developing countries as well.

6 REFERENCES

Aguti, J.N. (2002). Facing up the challenge of UPE in Uganda through Distance TeacherEducation programmes. Paper presented at Pan Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning:Open Learning: Transforming Education for development. Durban, South Africa.


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Bisaso, R. (2003). Computerised School Information Systems Usage in the Administrationand Management of Secondary Schools in Uganda: An Exploratory Study, University ofTwente, Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, The Netherlands.

British Council, (2003). Enhancing the quality of management and governance of schools inUganda. Available http://www.britishcouncil.org/Uganda/education

Fung, A.C.W. (1995). Managing change in “ITEM”. In Barta, B.Z., Telem, M., & Gev, Y.(Eds.)(1995). Information technology in educational management (pp. 37-46). London:Chapman & Hall.

Fung, A.C.W. & Visscher, A.J. (2001). A holistic view of SISs as an innovation and thefactors determining success. In Visscher, A.J., Wild, P. and Fung, A.C.W. (Eds.) (2001).Information Technology in Educational Management: Synthesis of Experience, Researchand Future Perspectives on Computer-Assisted School Information Systems. Kluwer.

Fung, A.C.W., Visscher, A.J., Smith, D., & Wild, P. (2002). Comparative Evaluation of theImplementation of computerised school management systems. In Watson, D. & Anderson,J. (Eds.)(2002). Networking the Learner Computers in Education. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Haughey, M. (2003). The Impact of ICT on the work of the principal. In Selwood, I.D, Fung,A.C.W., & O’Mahoney C.D. (Eds.) Management of Education in the Information Age.The Role of ICT. (Pp 63-81). London: Chapman & Hall

Ministry of Education and Sports (1999) The Ugandan Experience of Universal PrimaryEducation. Kampala, Uganda.

Odaet, C.F. (1995). Uganda. In Neville T. Postlethwaite (Ed.) 1995) InternationalEncyclopedia of National Systems of Education. Elsevier Science Ltd.

Visscher, A.J. (1995). Computer assisted school administration and management: where arewe and where are we going? In Barta, B.Z., Telem, M. & Gev, Y. (Eds.) (1995).Information technology in educational management. London: Chapman & Hall.

Visscher, A.J (1996a). Information Technology in educational management as an emergingdiscipline. International Journal of Educational Research, 25(4), 291-296.

Visscher, A.J. (1996b). The implications of how school staff handle information for usage ofschool information systems. International Journal of Educational Research, 25 (4), 323-34.

Visscher, A.J. (2001). Computer-Assisted School Information Systems: the concepts,intended benefits, and stages of development. In Visscher, A.J., Wild, P. and Fung,A.C.W. (Eds.)(2001). Information Technology in Educational Management: Synthesis ofExperience, Research and Future Perspectives on Computer-Assisted School InformationSystems. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Visscher, A.J. & Bloemen, P.P.M. (1999). Evaluation and use of computer-assistedmanagement information systems in Dutch schools. Journal of Research on Computing inEducation, 32(1), 172-188

Visscher, A.J. & Fung, A.C.W. (2001). Imperatives for successful implementation of schoolinformation systems. In Visscher, A.J., Wild, P. and Fung, A.C.W. (Eds.) (2001).Information Technology in Educational Management: Synthesis of Experience, Researchand Future Perspectives on Computer-Assisted School Information Systems.: Kluwer.

Visscher, A.J., Fung, A., & Wild, P. (1999). The Evaluation of the large-scale implementationof a computer-assisted management information system in Hong Kong schools. Studies inEducational Evaluation, 25, 11-31.

Visscher, A.J., Wild, P., & Smith, D. (2003). The Results of Implementing SIMS in EnglishSecondary schools. In Selwood, I.D, Fung, A.C.W., & O’Mahoney C.D (Eds.)(2003).Management of Education in the Information Age. The Role of ICT. (Pp 34-44). London:Chapman & Hall.


ITEM System Usage in the Ministry of Education inBotswana

Omponoye C. Kereteletse and Ian SelwoodMinistry of Education IT Unit, Gaborone, BotswanaThe University of Birmingham, School of Education, Edgbaston, Birmingham, [email protected]

Abstract: In this paper some of the results of a study that evaluated system usage of thecomputerised information system implemented by the Ministry of Education(MoE) in Botswana are presented. The system was implemented to manage theteaching human resource. Evaluation of the use of this new system was basedon the users’ perception of their ability to use the ITEM system directly, orindirectly, and a detailed analysis of factors that influence system usage. Themagnitude of external training, perceived quality of information provided, andcomputer experience of the MoE staff explained considerable amounts ofvariance in direct use of the system implemented by the MoE in Botswana.Whereas the amount of external training, and perceived quality of informationprovided and output options explained considerable amounts of variance inindirect use of the system implemented by the MoE in Botswana.

Key words: Educational management, system usage, system quality, implementation,organisation.

1 BACKGROUND

Botswana is a developing country with a highly centralised system formanaging education. Due to the rapid expansion of the education system, themanual system of managing the teaching workforce was not workingefficiently or effectively. In 1994, a new education policy had been adopted -‘The Revised National Policy on Education’ (RNPE) (MoE, 1994). TheRNPE reported a massive expansion of pupils in schools, but that academicstandards were declining. Furthermore, RNPE noted that the effectivemanagement of the teaching resource was seen as paramount to expanding

100 Omponoye C. Kereteletse and Ian Selwood

education and maintaining quality. However, in spite of the reorganisation ofthe Department of Teaching Service Management, problems persisted withregard to the service delivery of the department. The Botswana Ministry ofEducation (MoE) decided to implement a computerised system for managingthe teaching resource, based on Infinium Software and this went live onMay 1999, and the implementation process was analysed by Kereteletsweand Selwood (2003). This paper evaluates the system usage of theimplemented computerised information system.

2 RESEARCH FRAMEWORK

According to Visscher, (1995) system use is related to system quality,implementation process features, and organisational process features. Hence,the impact of system quality, implementation process features, andorganisational process features on direct and indirect usage of theimplemented system were investigated. Three system quality characteristics:software quality, information quality, and quality of output options, wereconsidered in the analysis. Five characteristics of the implementation processfeatures were considered: external training, internal training, clarity ofinnovation goals, clarity of means, and technical team performance. Internaltraining and clarity of means were excluded from the analysis due to theincidence of numerous missing values. The variables that constituted theorganisational features were the system (Infinium HR) goals, motivationbefore implementation, and computer experience.

3 METHOD AND DATA ANALYSIS

A total of 168 questionnaires were distributed to staff in the MoEDepartments involved in the management of teachers. These were TeachingService Management, Secondary Education, Primary Education, andRegional Education Offices. The questionnaire was completed by clericalstaff, secretaries, personal assistants, middle managers, and top managers.

A response rate of 76% (127 out of 168) was achieved. Of the 127questionnaires returned, eleven were excluded from the analysis as they hadnumerous blanks. Users rated their subjective state on various 6-point scales.The categorical data of the independent variables were coded and scores forthe dependent variable ‘direct and indirect use’ on the interval scale (0 hoursto greater than 6 hours per week) were converted to z-scores. Thisstandardisation paved the way to the manipulation of the attitude levelsacross context, using each respondent’s mean in the standard comparison. To

ITEM System Usage in the Ministry of Education in Botswana 101

analyse the data on the factors related to the extent of system use (systemquality, implementation process and organisational process features) in theMoE, backward regression analysis was used.

4 RESULTS

4.1 How System Quality Features Relate to Direct Use

ANOVA was used to test the null hypothesis that there was no linearrelationship between predictors (information quality, software quality andquality of output options) and direct use. In model 1, when all threepredictors are entered, the significance level associated with the observedvalue of F is 0.031. In model 2, the significance level improved to 0.014, anda further improvement in the level of significance of F is 0.000, is noted inmodel 3. Thus, in all the three models, the null hypothesis can be rejectedbecause the significance of F in the three models is less than 0.05, and wecan conclude that there is a significant linear relationship between the set ofpredictors and direct use. However, an increase in the F-value is noted inmodels 2 and 3 when the variables software quality and quality of dataoutput options are removed respectively. The F-value increases but there is


little change in the sum of squares, and the df (degrees of freedom) was 3 inmodel 1, reduced to 2 in model 2 and then to 1 in model 3. However, Model3 is adopted since the other two independent variables ‘software quality’ and‘output of data quality options’ did not have any significant relationship withdirect use of the Infinium HR system by MoE, as shown in Table 2.

Table 2 shows the significance of F for the remaining independentvariable, information quality in model 3 at 0.000 which is less than p=0.05.Therefore, there is a significant relationship between information quality andthe direct use of the Infinium HR system in the MoE in Botswana.

More importantly, Table 2 also provides indications of the relationshipbetween the variables: information quality and the direct use of the InfiniumHR system in the management of teaching staff. This is explained using theunstandardised and standardised coefficients. At the MoE level, an increaseof one point in the information quality variable implies an increase of 0.746in the direct use variable. That is, if the ‘direct use’ variable increases by onepoint, it moves for example, from the ‘0 hours’ of direct use value to ‘1-2hours’ value (or from ‘3-4 hours’ to ‘5-6 hours’ etc.) per week. In otherwords in terms of the standardised coefficients, an increase of one standarddeviation in information quality produces an increase of 0.282 standarddeviations in direct use above the mean. That is, 11.03% over the mean. Inaddition, of the variance in direct use is explained by informationquality.


4.2 How System Quality Features Relate to Indirect Use

Table 3 shows the significance of F at p=0.000 (p=<0.05) for bothmodels (1 and 2), suggesting that the null hypothesis (on indirect use) isrejected. Thus, there is a significant linear relationship between the systemquality features and indirect use in the management of teaching humanresource in the MoE.

In model 2 when the variable software quality is removed, the F-valueincreases from 6.837 to 9.523 and there is little change in the sum of squares,23.951 to 22.318, suggesting the contribution of the variable, softwarequality, was insignificant (significance of F at 0.240) in the indirect use ofthe Infinium HR system (Table 4). The results of model 2 are thereforeconsidered in the analysis.

The unstandardised coefficients for information quality of 0.531 in model2 (Table 4) tells us that an increase by one unit of information qualityincreases the indirect use by an average of 0.531 points on the six-point scale((1= 0 hours, 2= 1-2 hours, 3= 3-4 hours, 4= 5-10 hours, 5=11-15 hours, 6=


>15 hours) per week. In the same way, a one point increase in the ‘quality ofdata output options’ increases the indirect use of the Infinium HR system byan average of 0.689 points on the six point scale. Using standardised scores,an increase of one standard deviation in information quality or quality ofoutput options produces an increase of 0.221 or 0.253 standard deviationsrespectively, in the dependent variable indirect use. Furthermore, 29.2% ofthe variance in indirect use is explained by information quality and quality ofoutput options in model 2 (Table 3)

The findings with respect to the effects of system quality features showthat quality of information from the Infinium HR system has a relationshipwith both the direct and indirect use of the Infinium HR system in themanagement of teaching personnel by the MoE. In addition, a variableclosely related to information quality, ‘quality of output options’ hadinfluenced indirect use of the system by the MoE end users. However, thevariable, quality of software appears not to affect either the direct or indirectuse by the MoE.

4.3 How Implementation Process Features relate to DirectUse

Table 5 shows the results of a three-step backwards regression analysiswith the variable, clarity of innovation goals removed in model 2, and thevariables clarity of innovation goals and performance of the ChangeFacilitator System (CFS) (the technical team) removed in model 3. Table 6shows that there is no significant independent relationship between theremoved variables and direct use of the Infinium HR system.


The amount of external training seems to be the most powerful source ofexplaining the variance in direct use. The standardised coefficient of thevariable external training is at 0.429 (Table 6), suggesting that an increase byone standard deviation in the amount of external training produces anincrease of 0.429 standard deviations above the mean of direct use of theInfinium HR system. Therefore, an increase of one standard deviation in theamount of external training yields an increase of 18.79% of direct use abovethe mean (7.5 hours per week). Additionally, 27.3% (Table 5) of thevariance in direct use of the Infinium HR system is explained by theindependent variable ‘amount of external training.’

4.4 How Implementation Process Features Relate toIndirect Use

Table 7 shows the results of a three-step backwards regression analysiswith the variable, clarity of innovation goals removed in model 2, and thevariables clarity of innovation goals and performance of the CFS removed inmodel 3.


Furthermore, Table 8 shows that the performance of CFS and clarity ofinnovation goals have significance values of F at greater than 0.05,suggestive of the variables having no significant independent relationshipswith the indirect use of the Infinium HR system. The significance of F inmodel 3 is at 0.000, thus the null hypothesis is rejected. It is furtherobserved that the sum of squares change is very small across the models(from 15.983 in model 1 to 14.723 in model 3) while the correspondingvalues of mean squares increased from 5.328 (significance of F= 0.382) to14.723 (significance of F= 0.000).

The standardised coefficient for ‘amount of external training’ of 0.724(Model 3, Table 8) implies that an increase by one point on external trainingvariable increases the indirect use of the Infinium HR system by an averageof 0.724 on the six-point scale. Alternatively, in terms of standardisedscores, an increase of one standard deviation in amount of external trainingproduces an increase of 0.310 standard deviations in indirect use of theInfinium HR system. This means indirect use of the system increases by12.93% above the mean (per week).

The findings on the relationship of implementation process featuressuggest that amount of external training of the end users is a factor inexplaining the variances in both the direct use and indirect use of theInfinium HR system in the management of teachers by the MoE.


4.5 How Organisational Process Features Relate to DirectUse

This section examines and analyses data collected on the impact oforganisational process features on use (direct or indirect). The variables thatconstitute organisation features are the Infinium goals, motivation beforeimplementation, and computer experience. These three independentvariables were considered in the backwards regression analysis.

As noted on the footnote of Table 9, all organisational features variableswere entered in model 1, perceived IS goals was removed in model 2, andthen in model 3 perceived IS goals and motivation before implementationwere both removed implying that these factors did not have a significantindependent relationship on the direct use of the Infinium HR system.However, the significance of F is at 0.008 (Table 9), suggesting that the nullhypothesis (direct) is rejected, as there is linear significant relationshipbetween the predictors and dependent variable direct use.


The variable ‘computer experience’ explains 33.8% of the variance indirect use. This variable has a standardised coefficient of 0.248. Therefore,an increase by one standard deviation in the variable ‘computer experience’results in an increase of direct use by 10.26% above the mean. Theconclusion reached here is that an increase in computer experience of theend users would result in increased direct use of the Infinium HR system.

4.6 How Organisational Process Features Relate to IndirectUse

The summary Table 10 on the main effects depicts significance of F ofthe predictors on indirect use at 0.161, which is not statistically significant atp>0.05. Therefore, the null hypothesis is accepted, that there is no linearrelationship between organisational process features and the indirect use ofthe Infinium HR system in the management of teaching staff. In addition, thethree independent variables, motivation before implementation, perceived ISgoals and computer experience within the MoE have no significant impacton the indirect use of the database. Although of the variance inindirect use is explained by the three predictors it was not statisticallysignificant.

5 CONCLUSION

Three factors thought to influence system quality - information quality,quality of software, and quality of output options were analysed with respect


to their effects on direct and indirect use of the Infinium HR system. Bothdirect and indirect use was affected by information quality. In addition, avariable closely related to information quality namely quality of outputoptions had influenced indirect use of the system by the MoE end users.However, the variable quality of software appears not to affect either thedirect or indirect use by the MoE. With respect to the implementationprocedure, the critical factor effecting indirect and direct usage was theamount of external training of the users. As regards organisationalprocesses, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that an increase incomputer experience of the end users would result in an increased direct useof the Infinium HR system, but no increase in indirect usage.

To conclude, this paper highlights some of the factors that influencedirect and indirect use of the Infinium HR system as implemented formanaging the teaching resource in the MoE in Botswana. However, itshould be noted that the amount of use might have been influenced by otherfactors. Botswana is a developing country and as Riggs (1964) asserts, inprismatic societies there is a tendency of the new and the old to sit side byside. That is, although a new system has been introduced, the system remainsunused by the user organisation. Unfortunately, space does not permit theinvestigation of this hypothesis here.

REFERENCES6

MoE (1994). The Revised National Policy on Education (RNPE). Gaborone, BotswanaGovernment Printer

Kereteletswe O.C. and Selwood I.D. (2003). The Implementation of Information Technologyin Educational Management in Botswana in Selwood, I.D., Fung, A.C.W., & O’MahonyC. (Eds) Management of Education in the Information Age - The Role of ICT. Boston:Kluwer.

Riggs Fred, W. (1964) Administration in Developing Countries: The Theory of PrismaticSociety. Boston: Houghton

Visscher, A.J. (1995). ‘Computer assisted school administration and management: where arewe and where should we go?’ In Information Technology in Educational Management.Edited by Ben Zion Barta, Moshe Telem and Yaffa Gev. Chapman Hall for IFIP, London.


Data Quality in Educational Systems for DecisionMakers

Geoff Sandy and Bill DaveyVictoria University and RMIT

[email protected], [email protected]

Abstract: Significant research has shown that effectiveness of an educationaladministrative system can be measured by acceptance testing. These researchefforts have suggested that an additional measure should be of system quality.ITEM systems are used by Universities and funding bodies to make importantdecisions. Case study research reported here shows that there is a likelihood ofpoor decisions being made because of the continued existence of data qualityproblems. This means that a decision maker should be able to see whatreliability is relevant to each piece of data. Data quality literature shows thatdata quality depends on some important and known factors and case studiesshow that only some of these factors are included in current ITEM systems.

Key words: University, data quality, administrative systems.

1 INTRODUCTION

Recently, a former Director of the CIA revealed that a real-life version ofthis fictional scenario was actually played out when a test tape wasinadvertently installed and the screen at a similar center warned of a nuclearattack. As computers play a more and more important role in the real-world– a world in which the computer-generated outputs often present a picture ofthe real-world for critical activities – it is increasingly vital that that picturebe correct! (Orr, 1996)

Although educational management seldom deals with nuclear warfare,decisions in education do depend on information and do have consequences.Each of the universities studied in this research has a revenue from the

112 Geoff Sandy and Bill Davey

national and state governments of the order of $500 million and $200 millionrespectively (RMIT annual report 2002, VU annual report 2003). Thesefunds are received as a result of statistics collected from and stored in theuniversity information systems. One of the very few studies that examinedthe integrity of this data was conducted in 1992 by a team of researchers thatexamined statistics student by student. This study found: “This informationwas obtained for the five year study period but, when checked againstfaculty records, was found to be only about 50% reliable.” (Burns, Davey,Hill, Leveson 1992). Obviously, in 1992 the University information systemswere not reliable and very large amounts of money were being distributed onthe basis of these poor figures. Each of the universities in this study hasrecently upgraded its information systems. This exploratory but timely studyof the new systems reveals that whilst fundamental improvements have beenmade we are still not confident about their data integrity.

2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The general literature of data quality contains some coherent principlesregarding the means of keeping data pure. According to the U.S. DefenseInformation System Agency (Cykana & Stern, 1996), the root causes of poordata quality can be attributed to four primary areas:

Process problems.System problems.Policy and procedure problems.Data design problems.

There are a number of general Data Quality Rules that one can deducefrom an FCS view of information systems:

Data that is not used cannot be correct for very long;Data Quality in an information system is a function of its use not itscollection;Data Quality will, ultimately, be no better than its most stringentuse;Data Quality problems tend to become worse with the age of thesystem;The less likely some data attribute (element) is to change, the moretraumatic it will be when it finally does change;Laws of data quality apply equally to data and meta-data (the dataabout the data). (Orr 1998)

1.2.3.4.

DQ1.DQ2.

DQ3.

DQ4.

DQ5.

DQ6.

Similarly Becker (1998) categorizes seven common data qualityproblems seen by end-users: (1) data corruption due to incorrect conversion,(2) historical and current data having different meanings, (3) the same data

Data Quality in Educational Systems for Decision Makers 113

having more than one data definition, (4) missing data, (5) hidden data, (6)missing granularity, and (9) violation of integrity rules. Clearly both of thesesources indicate the need to correctly structure data, and then to use the dataregularly in support of daily operations. The need for structure starts with theintended uses of the data. To see what that means in an educational settingthe case studies started with analysis of user complaints about the two oldsystems. From this analysis the data quality rules could be seen in terms ofthree main areas common to both the case studies.

First is the accessibility of the information required by the decisionmakers. Second, is the integrity of the information used by the decisionmakers and finally, is whether the information supports the business rules ofthe organizational unit. Each of these is discussed in section 4 with examplesdrawn from each of the case studies.

3 METHODOLOGY

To test this framework two universities were chosen for an in-depthstudy. Both had acknowledged problems with their administrative systemsbut had taken different paths to solving these problems. The researchers areboth senior academics at the respective universities with significantadministrative responsibilities. A range of administrative staff and academicsprovided input into the findings through interviews and other verbal input. Astudy was also made of documentation of the administrative systems.Specifically, data was collected about the accessibility and integrity of theinformation from the old systems. In addition data was sought as to how wellthe information supported the business rules of the organizational units ofeach university. This includes both the academic administration and theacademic teaching units.

4 THE CASE STUDIES

Two universities in Victoria, Australia were chosen for the study due tothe ability to obtain very detailed data and the recent revamp of theirinformation systems. The universities have taken different directions inaddressing the problems of data quality. VU has produced a data warehousesolution we will call the MIS. RMIT has used a People Soft product tosupport a business process reengineering model called the AMS.


4.1 Victoria University Data Warehouse (MIS)

In 2002 Victoria University (VU) introduced a Data Warehousing systemand MIS (hereafter referred to as MIS). Funds were first voted for thisproject in 1999. The main data sets of the Warehouse are the VictorianTertiary Admission Centre (VTAC) Popularity Polls, the VU StudentInformation System (VUSIS) and data VU provides to the CommonwealthDepartment of Education, Science and Training (DEST). Wherever possibleofficial point of time data captures are used in preference to VUSIS data.

Figure 1: MIS at Victoria University

BusinessObjects is a software program that allows authorised users toretrieve and analyse corporate data. The BusinessObjects Repository is adatabase that controls all BusinesObiect activities. There are three domains:

Universe Domain.Document Domain.Security Domain.

Users are concerned with corporate documents housed in the DocumentDomain. They can access and print standard reports and are able to createand access customised reports. The Course Analysis Reports for the Higher

1.2.3.


Education Sector of VU is an example of a class of standard reports. Theyhave been widely distributed and a response to their usefulness has beensought. The results have yet to be published.

The MIS provides relatively easily access and all relevant information iswarehoused. The MIS provides information for each course for 3 years(2001-2003). Figure 1 shows that the MIS is a data warehouse, taking datafrom a number of sources and providing it to users in the form of BusinessObjects to the user.

4.2 RMIT University Academic Management System (AMS)

In 1998 RMIT Council adopted the Information Technology AlignmentProject (ITAP) recommendations, including the acquisition of a functionallyrich and inherently flexible integrated academic management system tomanage the student learning experience and to facilitate the academicteaching process. In 1999, RMIT conducted a tender for a softwarereplacement to the existing HP3000 legacy systems. The selected softwarewas PeopleSoft Student Administration, with AST Consulting selected as theImplementation Partner.

Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) is a recognised management toolused by organisations to improve their performance across a range ofindicators. The purpose of reviewing an organisation’s business processes isto gain a comprehensive understanding of the way the organisation currentlyoperates, to identify bottlenecks and difficulties in the current system and toredesign those systems to produce an improved outcome for the organisationand its stakeholders. The following abstract from the AMS processdescription website, http://www.ams.rmit.edu.au/business/bp_sr.htm, showthe type and extent of processes that have been reengineered.

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4

67

8

910

CurrentCurrentCurrentCurrent

Current

CurrentCurrent

Current

CurrentCurrent

EnrolmentEnrolmentEnrolmentEnrolment

Enrolment

EnrolmentEnrolmentVariationsEnrolment

EnrolmentRe-enrolment

Enrol Student -Single Subject-EnquiryEnrol Student -Single Subject- Web BasedEnrol Student -Single Subject-Paper BasedEnrol Student -Higher Ed Onshore Local(UGRD, PGRD, RSCH)Enrol Student -Higher Ed Offshore International(UGRD, PGRD, RSCH)Enrol Student -Preparatory (Incl VCE)Context Enrolment -Registration/Variation/ExemptionEnrol Student -Offshore (PREP, TAFE, UGRD,PGRD, RSCH)Enrol & Re-enrol Student OLARe-enrolment preparation


There are approximately 500 of these high level processes in the list,each of which has a detailed process map, a small section of which has thislevel of detail.

Figure 2: Typical process definition form the AMS

Accurate measurement is important for the University and specifically atthe course level because the Australian Government like many others isintent on mandating many more quality control processes that must bereported upon by the University.

The AMS team made an important initial decision. That was to createrobust process descriptions for every process prior to implementing thatprocess in the new system. An unattributed adage “a computer allows us toturn a manual mess into an automated mess” is typical of the outcome ofmany systems that do not ensure robust systems before automation.

5 PROBLEMS WITH DATA QUALITY

The study focused on how the old systems performed in regards to threekey aspects of data quality. Reference is also made about the new system.Appropriate information must be accessible to the decision makers.Information cannot be used by people who cannot find it. In both casessenior academics and administrators were found to not use systems becauseof their inaccessibility.

Similarly information will not be used if it suspected of lacking integrity.This can be due to the structural factors pointed out by Becker, or due to lack


of use resulting in out-of-date and incomplete data. In both cases integrityconcerns were prominent in the decision to introduce a new system.

Finally, information must support the fundamental business rules of theorganisation. Both case studies showed that the old systems did not fullysupport the important business rules. The new systems were also promptedby a desire to have some business rules re-engineered and implemented innew systems.

5.1 Accessibility of Information

A Victoria university the legacy system, called VUSIS, was necessarilycomplex and therefore difficult to navigate. It presented difficulties toanyone but the most experienced users. Also some important informationwas not stored on VUSIS.

A Head of School (HOS) requires information on how many fee-payingstudents are enrolled in each undergraduate and postgraduate course. Inaddition a break-up based on onshore/ offshore is required. The informationis to establish the degree of dependence on full-fee income for each course.A threat, like a SARS outbreak, may put a course or School at risk if there isa very high dependence on full fee income. Such information is also requiredbecause of a strategic decision to attract more students onshore (moreprofitable) than operate offshore. In the past such information was difficultto obtain because of difficulties associated with the VUSIS and that relevantinformation was stored in multiple places.

At RMIT the legacy system was an HP product, distributed through aninterface called Reflections. Most people knew the system as Reflections.This system was available to one person in each department in theUniversity. Because the system was mounted on very old hardware itbecame so slow as to be unusable during peak periods. Most departmentsreported that they used paper-based back-up systems for ‘the real work’although the system was robust and reliable in the features that were offered.Accessibility of information was a problem with the Reflections systemsince an emulation program needed to be installed on each client machineand the server was very old technology. This meant that only a few people ineach faculty were able to be connected. In practice this meant printing oflists for use by staff.

5.2 Information Integrity

Recently, the Senior Management of Victoria University decided tocontinue with the practice of annual increase of the ENTER score required


of students to enrol in an undergraduate course. This is the score graduatingsecondary school students receive. An official document analysing theimpact on each Faculty, Course and Campus was distributed. It sought to use2003 ENTER scores to assess the impact of raising the ENTER from 65 to70 in 2004. The Faculty of Business and Law’s executive officer believedthat the numbers in the document were inaccurate in regard to the Faculty.Using BusinessObjects the results revealed this to be the case Specifically,the numbers enrolling with an ENTER in 2003 was 51 not 103.

A manual check would confirm the accuracy of the MIS but this was notundertaken as it was considered too resource-intensive and laborious.However, the Faculty of Engineering, Science and Technology did undertakesuch a manual count. It revealed that the senior management data was veryinaccurate and the MIS sound.

As with many institutions, RMIT determines program viability through anumber of measures. These include survey data from graduates. In recenttimes a number of programs were marked for deletion due to unfavourablesurvey results. On enquiry it was found that the underlying survey resultswere from less than five graduates. This level of granularity is an issue withdata quality. Any critical data values that are used for decision makingshould allow the manager to ‘drill down’ to determine how much reliabilityis supporting any given figure. This simple example was repeated in most ofthe decision making within the University. Eventually senior managementdecided that a new system was required to provide timely and accurateinformation.

5.3 Business Rule Support

One of the quality measures the success of a course is evaluated againstis the student retention rate across the years of the course. DEST uses ameasure referred to as the Apparent Retention Rate (ARR). It is an importantbusiness rule about what makes for a successful course.

The MIS project team at Victoria University has identified the need forthe University to upgrade its information systems so it can accuratelymeasure course completions. Currently, VU reports ARR data to DESTbased on graduation information. However, it is recognised that the numberof students who graduate may be less than the number of students whocomplete and that this may have an adverse affect on the retention rate. It isalso recognised that the ARR is based purely on the student and not thestudent course combination. This means that a student who transfers toanother higher education course will be counted as a continuing student.

At RMIT the issues of qualification to graduate, recognition of priorlearning and prerequisite courses are all seen as academically essential. The


old system supported none of the relevant business rules and full-time staffwere allocated in every department to perform these tasks. The errors due tothis massive amount of manual processing had become of concern to senioradministrators and were seen as a justification of the new system. Prior tointroduction of the AMS a considerable amount of effort was expended indetermining and integrating business rules from around the University. Somebusiness rules were found to be so complex that the University decided tosimplify all rules. Documentation and standardization of business rulesbecame an important step in producing an effective administrative system.

6 BENEFITS AND CONTINUING PROBLEMS OF THENEW SYSTEMS

The MIS at VU represents an important development in minimising dataquality problems. It confirms many of the data quality rules. This can beillustrated with reference to two examples previously discussed. The firstconcerns accessibility of information to make decisions on overseas full-feestudents. The second concerns decision making needs on identifying highand low demand courses.

The MIS is an easily accessible system for important course reportinginformation than has been the past experience of users. The VUSIS system isnecessarily complex and difficult to navigate. It presents difficulties toanyone but the most experienced users and does not contain all information.

Despite the benefits conferred by the MIS at VU there remain continuingdata quality problems. Again this may be illustrated with reference to twoexamples that have arisen recently at VU. First, concerns the inability todefine and accurately identify student attrition in a course. The secondexample is the failure to access in a timely and meaningful way, basicstaffing information on a University, Faculty and School basis.

At RMIT, the AMS was transported from the United States where it hadbeen used in the tertiary education sector. It is mounted on modern hardwareand provides reporting features that have the potential to be very useful. Thesystem is restricted in use, but reports are available to most officers of theuniversity who might need the information. To this extent the data is useddaily and any errors in the database do show up quickly.

The AMS sought to improve on this lack of availability by makinginformation available through a web interface. The interface exists butsecurity and training concerns have meant that only a few people in eachdepartment have password access to the system, particularly for input. Thisfundamental balance between security and universal access remains


unsolved with the new system. The process of adapting a program from onesystem to another across international boundaries has lead to a very largeproblem. The University has found many problems with the interaction ofadaptations. It has been decided to restore the original version of theprograms and to change University processes to match those inherent in theoriginal.

7 CONCLUSION

The literature suggests that the issues ‘Accessibility of Information’,‘Information Integrity’ and ‘Business Rule Support’ underlie the importantissues of data quality in university administrative systems. Two universitiestook different approaches to implementing a new administrative system. Onedesigned a data warehouse to provide data objects to users, the other took abusiness process engineering approach, in each case to address real dataquality concerns. In both cases an important design criterion was to makeinformation more generally accessible and hence improve its quality. In bothcases significant improvements were created in accessibility, and this wasreflected in perceived data quality. The data quality model of using threearea of concern was found to be a useful means for studying informationsystems in the tertiary education field.

8 REFERENCES

Becker, S. (1998), “A Practical Perspective on Data Quality Issues,” Journal of DatabaseManagement, 9, 35-37.

Burns B, Davey B, Hill G, Leveson L. (1992). Articulation and Credit Transfer, NorthernIndustry Education and Training Link Melbourne.

Cykana, P., Paul, A., and Stern, M. (1996), “DOD Guidelines on Data Quality Management,”Proceedings of the 1996 Conference on Information Quality, Cambridge, MA, 154-171

Orr, Ken (1998) “Data Quality and Systems Theory - A Paper by Ken Orr, Ken Orr Institute”;in Communications of the ACM, May 1998.

RMIT (2002), Report of the RMIT Council for the period 1 January to 31 December 2002http://mams.rmit.edu.au/wmhpedjibaj9.pdf.

Tatnall, A. and Davey, B. (1995). “Executive Information Systems in School Management: aResearch Perspective”. World Conference on Computers in Education VI. WCCE’95.Liberating the Learner. Tinsley, J. D. and van Weert, T. J. London, IFIP / Chapman &Hall: 579-588.

Victoria University (2002). Annual Report, http://www.vu.edu.au/home/Media_and_Marketing/Online_Publications/2003_Annual_Report/indexdl.asp.

Visscher, A. J. and Bloemen, P. P. M. (1999). “Evaluation of the Use of Computer-AssistedManagement Information Systems in Dutch Schools.” Journal of Research on Computingin Education 32(1): 172.

Planning as the Base for Efficient Management ofICTThe case of ULPGC

Jacques Bulchand, Jorge RodríguezUniversidad de Las Palmas de Gran [email protected]

Abstract: Challenges produced as a result of the vertiginous advance in computer andcommunication science are extremely difficult to meet, especially for publicuniversities. In this paper, we propose a methodology for the development ofstrategic information system (IS) and information and communicationtechnology (ICT) plans in higher education and we present the application ofthis planning procedure to the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria University. Aformal planning process is needed in higher education to meet the needs of allagents participating in the universities. Thus, the proposed methodology iscomposed of nine steps and involves the whole of the university community,not just IS/ICT technicians. These nine phases, derived from strategic planningprocedures, are preplanning, external environment assessment, internalevaluation, strategic interest themes identification, mission and visionstatements declaration, strategic axes identification, goals and strategiesdefinition, project and specific actions definition and implementation andevaluation. In this paper we also present in detail the process carried out inULPGC using the proposed methodology and the results in “The Plan for Info-Tech Systems and Communications ULPGC 2003-2006”, which is at presentin its implementation or execution phase.

Key words: Information systems, information and communication technology, strategicplanning.

122 Jacques Bulchand, Jorge Rodríguez

1 INTRODUCTION: THE NECESSITY FOR IS/ICTPLANNING

Lately, we are seeing higher education institutions going though a seriesof very important changes. On one hand they are subject to growingeconomical restrictions. On the other, there is a vast necessity of informationsystems (IS) and information and communication technologies (ICT) in allthe environments of university life (Bates, 2000).

Under this perspective, information systems and information andcommunication technologies (IS/ICT) development requires carefulplanning. This planning should involve the whole university community.Indeed, they should be given the chance to opine about which are theproblems that must be attended in the short term and what should be thefinancial resources distribution.

Besides allowing participation, IS/ICT planning lets us achieve six goals(Andreu, Ricart and Valor, 1996; Cassidy, 1998; Ward and Griffiths, 1996).First, an alignment between the IS/ICT strategy and the corporate. Second,guaranteeing the necessary resources so that the ICT area is able to facerapidly changing environments. Third, finding an efficient and feasiblestructure for the IS/ICT area. Fourth, improving the communication betweenmanagement and the IS/ICT technicians. Fifth, dealing with a critical andexpensive organizational resource. And sixth, obtaining an organizationalknowledge by doing the planning process.

1.1 Barriers to IS/ICT Planning

Although it may seem that the above stated goals are very important, it isverifiable that very few organizations carry out formal IS/ICT planningprocedures. What is the reason for this behavior? Basically, the resistance tothis kind of planning found in managers and in IS/ICT technicians.

IS/ICT technicians resist because organizations have tried to apply in thisarea every possible management technique, such as outsourcing, downsizingor total quality management. Unfortunately, results obtained have not reallybeen significant. Due to this, technicians tend to be skeptical and considereach new initiative and strategy as a trend which is in vogue but which willshortly disappear (Boar, 2001).

Managers, on their hand are not favorable either to IS/ICT planning.They do not really see the impact that IS/ICT have and there is a credibilitygap in ICT use. Plus, they do not view information as a business resource tobe managed for long-term benefit, as economical and human resources are(Ward and Griffiths, 1996).

Planning as the Base for Efficient Management of ICT 123

1.2 Problems When There is Not an IS/ICT Plan

Once the main goals of the planning process and the main existingbarriers to them have been defined, some authors describe the problemsorganizations that do not have strategic IS/ICT plans will face (Ward andGriffiths, 1996). First, there will be a loss of business opportunities and theorganization will incur a competitive disadvantage in respect to competitors.Second, there will be a lack of integration between systems and inefficientmanagement of data. This is duplication of efforts, lack of precision, delaysand information not useful for business management. Third, developmentpriorities will not arise from business needs. Instead, projects to bedeveloped will arrive from available technologies and from the search of anapplication for them (Cassidy, 1998). These three kinds of problems shouldhelp convince managers about the need of carrying out IS/ICT planningprocesses.

2 PLANNING METHODOLOGY

We now propose a methodology to develop information systems andinformation and communication technology plans in higher educationinstitutions. We base our work in the existing methodology for thedevelopment of strategic plans applying it to the information systems andtechnology area (Bates, 2000; Bryson, 1998; Bryson, 1995). Thus, wepropose a methodology composed of nine phases that we now present.

Each of these phases requires a series of techniques and tools. These willbe referred to in each of the phases although they will thoroughly describedin next section.

2.1 Preparation for Planning

This phase can be considered previous to the planning process. Its maingoals are three. To define why we are going to carry out the planning, todetermine the exact process that is going to be used and to define theinvolved work teams.

2.2 External Environment Assessment

The second phase is external environmental assessment. Its main goal isto detect existing trends and to check their influence on the university beingstudied. In this phase, we obtain two of the SWOT matrix components:opportunities and threats. The techniques and tools to be used in this phase


are other university IS/ICT plan examination, observation and in-depthinterviews.

2.3 Internal Evaluation

The third phase is dedicated to internal evaluation. Its goal is to analyzecurrent and under-developed IS, user perceptions, infrastructures, currenthuman resources and economical resources dedicated in the last few years.As a result of this phase we will obtain strengths and weakness of the SWOTmatrix. The techniques and tools to be used in this phase are several. Gibsonand Nolan’s model, value chain model, Rockart’s critical success factorsmodel, discussion groups, in-depth interviews, questionnaires, otheruniversity IS/ICT plan examination, detailed examination of all the existingdocuments regarding the IS/ICT area and direct observation.

2.4 Strategic Interest Themes Identification

The fourth phase is meant to identify strategic interest themes, which canbe considered as the union of challenges and trends. Challenges appearformally expressed in the institution’s strategic plan, if it exists, or in itsSWOT matrix. Trends, on the other hand can be identified through theDelphi method and through in-depth interviews. Techniques to be used inthis phase are four. Examination of the institution’s strategic plan and itsSWOT matrix as well as other university IS/ICT plans and articles byexperts in the area, in-depth interviews, questionnaire and Delphi method.

2.5 Mission and Vision Declaration

The fifth phase is dedicated mission and vision statements declaration.Mission is a precise definition that justifies the existence of theorganization’s IS/ICT area and where functions provided by it to the rest ofthe organization is found. Vision is where the organization wants to arrive inthe long-term. Techniques to be used in this phase are four. First, in-depthinterviews. Second, examination of other university IS/ICT plans. Third,observation of tasks usually accomplished by IS/ICT staff. Last, thequestionnaire that will be sent to the whole community.

2.6 Strategic Axes Identification

The sixth phase consists of strategic axes identification. These axes are afew pillars over which the future can be organized. When possible, they


should be derived from the institution’s strategic plan. Else, in-depthinterviews must be used.

2.7 Goals and Strategies

In the seventh phase, goals and strategies are proposed for each of theaxes defined. Usually there will be between three and five goals for eachaxis. Goals concerning IS, ICT and information management must bepresent. Techniques to be used are in-depth interviews, questionnaires,Delphi method and other university IS/ICT plan examination.

2.8 Projects and Specific Actions Definition

In the eighth phase, a series of projects and specific actions are definedfor each of the strategies previously outlined. Each of them is assigned abudget, a responsible and one or more indicators that allow us to controlthem. These specific actions are derived from the questionnaires, interviewsand observation of internal documents and from examination of otheruniversity IS/ICT plans. All of them will be validated in the Delphi method.

2.9 Implementation and Evaluation

The ninth and last phase is called implementation and evaluation. Its goalis to guarantee that proposed actions are put into practice and to evaluateobstacles found. In the evaluation phase we use the indicators that have beengenerated for each action. We suggest using the Balanced Scorecard, whichallows us to get and integrated vision of all the indicators.

3 FIELD WORK

All through the developed proposal, we have pointed to several methodsand techniques to be used in each of the phases. However, it is not necessaryto develop them individually for each phase. Instead, carrying them out justonce though the planning process is enough to achieve, simultaneously, allthe intended goals. We now present each of the techniques and tools to beused, outlining an approximate proposal of when they should be developed.

3.1 University Strategic Plan

We have already mentioned that the best situation is when the universityhas a strategic plan and that it is aligned with the IS/ICT plan. In this case,


the strategic plan and the IS/ICT plan will be developed in parallel. Thus thestrategic plan will take into account the IS/ICT area, so challenges neededfor strategic interest themes and strategic axes will be developed in theinstitution’s plan.

If the strategic plan did not take into account specifically the IS/ICT areawhen developed, we will probably have to add a strategic axis specificallyfocused on systems and technologies. Last, if we do not have an institution’sstrategic plan at all, the strategic interest themes and the axes for the IS/ICTplan will have to be drawn from the external and internal analysis of theinstitution using other research techniques.

3.2 Internal Documents

Internal documents are an important source of information for internalevaluation and for mission and vision definition. Documents to be analyzedare the statutes and normatives and the IS/ICT area job post relation.

3.3 Direct Observation

Direct observation of the work carried out by the IS/ICT staff is useful tocomplete the results obtained from the examination of internal documents.With it, we also find out which are the tasks really done by the IS/ICT staffabove what is officially stated.

3.4 Other University IS/ICT Plans

Examination of other university IS/ICT plans is one of the most usefulinformation sources in the planning process. This is because the environmentin all universities is fairly similar. If we do not have an institution’s strategicplan, we will use this examination for the axes definition, too.

3.5 Discussion Groups

The main goal of discussion groups is to detect the problems associatedwith IS/ICT use in the university under study. Due to this it is a technique tobe used during the internal evaluation phase. We understand discussiongroups should not try to find solutions to problems, since in initial phases themain goal is to find out the current situation and not to solve existingproblems. We also advise that ICT technicians do not participate in thesegroups.


We propose carrying out a minimum of five discussion groups withuniversity community members. Two would be dedicated to administrativestaff, two to teachers and researchers and one to students.

3.6 In-Depth Interviews

In-depth interviews should be carried out to rectoral team members,department directors and faculty deans. Not all these members must beinterviewed, since the number could be considerable. Instead we proposeselecting a smaller number through a directed random selection process. Thegoals of the in-depth interviews are to validate problems detected, to detectperceptions and sensations that relevant university members have about theuniversity’s IS/ICT, to analyze what these members expect from theuniversity IS/ICT and to find some solutions to the main problems alreadydetected. These interviews should be carried out once we have ended andanalyzed discussion groups.

3.7 Questionnaire

A questionnaire is sent to all members of the university community, andits main goals are to confirm problems that arose during the discussiongroups, to allow all university members to take place in the elaboration ofthe plan, to find out the opinion that the community has about some trendsthat are happening and to help in defining goals and action plans.

3.8 Delphi Method

Last, we propose developing a Delphi method in the ending part of theplanning process, when a first outlining of goals, strategies and action planshas already been made. In this case, we think the participants should beexperts in university IS/ICT, relevant rectoral team members and someexternal members, such as experts from local government, nation-widesystem experts or university IS/ICT suppliers.

3.9 Analysis Tools

We consider using three analysis tools in the IS/ICT planning process inuniversities: the value chain model, the critical success factors and Gibsonand Nolan’s model.


4 ULPGC IS/ICT PLAN

We now describe the process taken to develop the Universidad de LasPalmas de Gran Canaria’s (ULPGC) IS/ICT plan.

4.1 Development of the ULPGC IS/ICT Plan

We now describe the steps taken to validate this methodology through itsapplication to ULPGC.

The proposed plan was developed in the eight months betweenNovember 2001 and June 2002. During this time a direct observation of theIS/ICT area of the university was carried out, and during the first fourmonths internal documents were examined.

Five systems and technology plans of higher education institutions fromthe United States were examined. These five examined plans were obtainedfrom the Internet and were those of Berkeley, MIT, University of Arizona,Penn State University and East Tennessee State University.

IS/ICT and institutional strategic plans were developed with a certainoverlapping, so some degree of alignment was achieved. During November2001, five discussion groups with non-expert users were carried out. Thefirst two of them were with researchers and teachers. The next two were withadministrative staff and the last one involved students.

From these discussion groups, a structured list of more than 120 itemswas created. These items were classified into 10 subjects, each itemreflecting a problem detected by users or a wish about how IS/ICT shouldwork.

Using these problems and the desires found in the discussion groups, asemi-structured questionnaire composed of 31 questions was elaborated.This questionnaire was used in a series of in-depth interviews that werecarried out in December 2001 and January 2002. These in-depth interviewswere carried out to 8 rectoral team members, 6 deans and 6 departmentdirectors, for a total of 20 interviews.

Last, in April 2002 two simultaneous processes started. On one hand, aquestionnaire was sent out to all the members of the University. On the otherhand, a Delphi method was developed.

This questionnaire was only filled using electronic media; basically theinstitution’s web page. A total of 544 answers arrived: 234 from teachers andresearchers, 143 from administrative staff and 167 from students.

For the Delphi method, an expert panel composed by 22 experts inIS/ICT from university and non-university environments was used. The firstround took place in April and May 2002 and the second one in June 2002. Ineach of these rounds, experts where asked about three different items. First,


trends in general environment and their possible influence in our university.Second, about the main goals to be carried out. Third, the actions needed toachieve the goals and qualitative and quantitative indicators for each ofthem, In the first round, economical and temporal estimations where askedfor and in the second round a confirmation of these was required.

Also two of the three proposed tools were used, the value chain modeland Gibson and Nolan’s model. The critical success factors model was notused.

4.2 ULPGC IS/ICT Plan

To end this paper, we now present the main contents of the Informationand Communication System and Technology Plan of the ULPGC. Followingthe proposed methodology, the Plan has been structured into four axes. Ineach of them goals have been defined. In each goal action plans are defined.For each plan an execution time has also been estimated (short, medium andlong term). Last, for each action plan we have a series of concrete actions,with a budget and a timetable for those to be executed in 2003.

4.2.1 SWOT matrix

From the analysis developed by IS/ICT heads, from the discussiongroups and from other university IS/ICT plans, we got the main environmenttrends that affect the university’s IS/ICT. The analysis was consideredexternally (2 threats and 8 opportunities were found) and internally (8strengths and 20 weaknesses were found).

4.2.2 Mission and vision

We define the ULPGC mission as “Give University Community a stable,productive and efficient ICT environment that makes teaching andresearching easier, provides services to university community and to society,and helps knowledge management processes”.

Vision is defined as “We intend to place our University in the top-ten inthe IS/ICT area in our country, at the same level as reference universities inour context. ULPGC should be innovative in its daily tasks and mustpromote information and knowledge society in its environment.”

4.2.3 Axes

We found four axes in total. Three were derived from the institution’sstrategic plan, those related to teaching, researching and management and


services to the community. The fourth axis is specifically for IS/ICT and hasbeen called “Technology and Available Resources”.

4.2.4 Goals and actions

A total of 12 goals were defined between the four axis previouslymentioned. Each of these 12 goals has a series of actions. In total, we haveproposed up to 60 actions and 36 indicators to evaluate them. The Plan isavailable for download (in English and Spanish) at http://www.ulpgc.es.

5 CONCLUSIONS

Using a systematic approach to the development of system andtechnology plans in universities can be a great aid to achieve a successfuldistribution of limited financial resources in an expansive area such as thatrelated to new technologies. But a better resource distribution is alsoachieved. Other important results are also obtained. First, the wholeuniversity community participates in the process. Second, due to theirparticipation, they get to know the plan.

Also, a few effects have to be taken care of. On one hand is the hangovereffect. This is thinking to some stage that the objective of the planningprocess is to develop the plan, when the goal is to implement the plan. Onthe other, when implementing the plan, we discover our limitations, that is,we are able to think fast, but we execute very slowly.

6 REFERENCES

Andreu, R., Ricart, J.E., Valor, J. (1996). Estrategia y sistemas de informatión. Barcelona,Spain. McGraw-Hill, Interamericana de España, S.A.

Bates, A.W. (2000). Managing technological change. Strategies for college and universityleaders. San Francisco (CA), EE.UU. Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Boar, B. (2001). The Art of Strategic Planning for Information Technology. New York (NY),USA. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Bryson, J.M. (1988). “A strategic planning process for public and non-profit organizations”.Long Range Planning, 21 (1), pp. 73-81.

Bryson, J.M. (1995). Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations editiónrevisada). San Francisco (CA), USA. Jossey-Bass.

Cassidy, A. (1998). A practical guide to information systems strategic planning. Boca Raton(FL), USA. St. Lucie Press.

Ward, J., Griffiths, P. (1996). Strategic planning for information systems. Chichester, UK.John Wiley & Sons.

Educational Management Systems and the TutorialClass

Bill Davey and Arthur TatnallRMIT University and Victoria University, [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract: Recent research by the authors has shown that University administrativesystems are not designed with a view for use in the direct educational process.To attempt to discover the mechanisms for this failure in IT systems an in-depth case study was conducted. The study involved an extremely welldocumented University administrative system, intended to support the tutorialclassroom, called the Administrative Management System (AMS). Based on awell known PeopleSoft product the implementation and development of thesystem allowed a study of the dynamics within the educational institution. Itwas found that the vision of IT support for the classroom has not beenachieved and that the process of developing a large system for the Universityinvolved steps that would, almost inevitably, lead to an emphasis on datagathering rather than relevant reporting.

Key words: Administrative management systems, university administration, universityclassrooms, teaching support.

1 INTRODUCTION

In studying the development of information systems it is quite commonto find that a system has not fulfilled its potential because, althoughtechnically well designed, it failed to meet the needs of its users (Meredithand Mantel 1995). Even the best designed system that does not do what allits users want is of little overall value, and an important part of systemsdevelopment is finding out the needs of all the users: “You must thoroughlyunderstand the business needs before you can create a useful system” (Post

132 Bill Davey and Arthur Tatnall

1999). In an earlier ITEM paper (Davey and Tatnall 2003) we pointed outhow the information systems literature stresses the necessity of involvingusers in the process of designing information systems (Fuller and William1994; Lindgaard 1994; Lawrence, Shah and Golder 1997). If this is not donethen these systems will not be as useful as they could be. Lawrence et al.(1997) point to a need to consult with all users while Lindgaard (1994) notesthat a large body of research has shown that potential users do not make bestuse of information systems unless they feel that these systems have beendesigned with their involvement and in their interest. Tatnall (2001) pointsout that there is a body of research indicating that when centrally designedsystems are seem as unresponsive to the needs of a group of users then theseusers will ignore this system and devise means of their own to achieve whatthey want. There is plenty of evidence that this happens frequently in manyuniversity departments (Davey and Tatnall 2003).

Recent research (Davey and Tatnall 2003) has shown that manyuniversity administrative systems are not designed with a view to being usedin the direct educational process: to be of use in the tutorial classroom.Newton et al. (2003) point out that partly because of the way the data inuniversity administrative systems is stored and accessed, absolutely no usecan be made of these systems to improve teaching and learning. They notethat a tension thus exists between the different purposes of managementsystems in both school and higher education, and that systems that aredesigned primarily with a view to the provision of management informationare unlikely to be of use for classroom purposes. One Australian universityset out with the intention of creating a system to provide support foracademics, and this paper reports on a detailed study of its development andan investigation into the reasons for the large gap between the intentions ofthe system and the final outcome.

2 THE GAP BETWEEN VISION AND REALITY

A definition of academic management was set out by a high leveluniversity committee, producing a vision of what academic managementmight mean. Among the nine attributes of the system to be developed were:

Educational Management Systems and the Tutorial Class 133

Interviews were conducted with senior and junior academics,administrative officers and several members of the development team.


When shown the features above, all respondents reported that none of thesefeatures were actually extant in the Administrative Management System(AMS), nor was anyone aware of plans to include features that mightsupport these ideals. Clearly there had been an implementation whichignored a large part of the originally envisaged functionality, and this wasthe functionality that an academic might be interested in when looking toimprove the work done in academic classrooms.

In fact, the specifications of business processes included just these:Recruitment – automated information access supplemented by expertadvice on programs, and university services including housing,finance, etc., and handling of individual queries.Selection and management of selection (based on established selectioncriteria and processes – with the ability for individual academicselection decisions remaining).Problem-solving and management of individual students. Enrolledstudents are allocated to a Student Case Manager who is their firstpoint of contact for queries and problems.Customer Relationship Management – to facilitate and maintainRMIT’s relationships with enterprise clients, including the supervisionof the educational services contract.Timetabling.Program Team Management – including projects, quality assuranceand monitoring cohort progress.Electronic courseware development and cataloguing.Provision of expert advice on AMS functionality, and ongoing trainingto Faculties Department and central service areas. ‘SuperUsers’/Business Analysts of the AMS (Functional Analysts who haveformed part of the implementation team and returned to theirfaculties/service areas with expert knowledge of the system).Research support.

Note that none of these points have to do with classroom activities.


This is more starkly brought into focus when looking at the timelines forthe project:

Note that all of the processes envisaged are of straight data capture. Itseems that the grand dream of an IT system supporting the whole educationprocess had resulted in a routine student records storage system.

3 FINDING REASONS FOR THE GAP

The formal project team chart (above) shows how thinking on the AMSdevelopment became a reality. The diagram includes only officials recruitedfrom the vendor or the administrative levels of the University. In theory anyacademic advice could be garnered from the faculty reference group.

The Minutes of the Academic Management System Reference Group of2/2000 show that of 41 members of the reference group, one Dean was


represented by a department head but no other academic with teaching, orteacher supervision roles, was a member. By rollover time the referencegroup had grown to 62 members, none of whom were active teachers. At thismeeting, it was announced that:

“The Functional Analysts are a key component of this Phase andwill be consulting with various relevant experts across theUniversity. A high level of automation is envisaged in order tostreamline the procedures. Functional Analysts will be looking atthe rules which the University already has in place, will beanalysing whether these rules are consistent, informal or on anindividual basis and will be working towards consistentprocedures across the University system. The consistency ofUniversity procedures will lead to successful automation. ”Again, the functional analysts were drawn exclusively from

administrative support staff of the University. Research has shown (Martillaand McLean 1977) that it may be more effective for users to determine thosefactors they think important to the effective use of information systems. In acase study by Shah (2001) such a study of user input led to the identificationof issues such as communication between the Information SystemsDepartment and users, the speed of response of particular sections of thesystem and the existence of specific reports. A question arises as to theprevalence of features of a system that have importance to users, but havenot been emphasised by the developers of the system. It seems that, in thiscase, the definition of user became one that excluded any officer directlyrelated to teaching within the University.

4 RETURN ON INVESTMENT

We then looked for reasons for the sudden lurch from a vision ofacademic administrative support into the much more mundane world ofstudent records capture, the first clue was found from documents explainingsome advantages of the new system. The Return on Investment (ROI)indicated that a saving of 86 person years of effort per annum could beachieved within 5 years. This figure was based on a significant reduction inthe number of paper transactions (currently 1.2 million documents perannum) associated with student administration.

The reduction in the amount of paperwork was to be achieved by:Business Process Re-engineering leading to the rationalisation andstreamlining of academic procedures.Reduction in the number of appeals based on procedural errors.Increased self service for students including financial transactions,enrolment and class selection.


Reduced staffing required for enrolment and re-enrolment.Monitoring and enforcement of final result submission deadlines(approximately 20,000 results were incomplete at April 2000).Reduced errors in enrolment resulting in fewer enrolment variations.

The major impacts on academic and teaching staff were considered to be:Direct input of assessment results thus obviating double handlingand the need to check results input by admin staff.Immediate access to class lists without the need for intermediaries.Monitoring of timely completion of assessment.Automatic academic advisement with reduced call on academic staffto provide time to advise students on enrolment issues.Automated enrolment requiring much less academic staff time.Increased administrative assistance by redeployment of effort andre-skilling of administrative staff.

It can be seen that each of these justifications for the system was orientedaround cost savings from automation. There was no discussion of intangiblebenefits, and benefits to classroom teaching at all.

5 THE ROLE OF ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEMS INTEACHING SUPPORT

As we noted in a previous discussion of aspects of this topic (Davey andTatnall 2003), Fulmer and Frank (1997) point out that while these systemshave been effective in business-related tasks such as inventory control,personnel management, cost analysis and audit, they have been “… far lesseffective at depicting the conditions of teaching and learning. … They havenot provided quality data for analysing and intervening in processes ofteaching and learning.” It should be noted that Fulmer and Frank werereferring to administrative information systems in schools in thesecomments, but our research shows them to be equally true of manyuniversity systems.

In an earlier ITEM paper (Tatnall and Davey 1995) we also argued thateducational management systems should make more use of the ‘higherlevels’ of information system and provide decision support and executiveinformation facilities rather than just transaction processing. These higherlevels of support could provide a much better level of support for teaching.Newton et al. (2003) also suggest use of higher level functions such asdecision support. Speaking mainly of school-based systems, they suggestthat knowledge based systems may offer possibilities for tracking of studentprogress and diagnosis of learning problems. We would argue that suchfunctions would also be of value in university systems.


6 A CUTTING-EDGE EXAMPLE

An extract from the process description for the monitoring of studentprogress indicates the thinking at the time of the requirements definition:

“Each student who fails to meet academic requirements is sent acertified letter. All correspondence is certified to ensure thatstudents obtain documentation from the University. A returnreceipt is returned to the relevant Faculty to ensure thatdocumentation was received.”Clearly the developers here are seeing student progress monitoring as a

system that requires monitoring of only the paperwork. There could havebeen mention of diagnosis from the data or supplying quality improvementdata, but there was not. Since none of this was imagined, the processdefinitions excluded any real academic support.

Another clue as to what was envisaged by the system development teamcan be seen from the training schedules. This list of training courses showsthat the system was seen as a means of recording data, rather than supplyinginformation.

7 CONCLUSION

This case study shows that administrative systems in university educationare not immune to the vagaries of information systems designed for anyother industry sector, and suffer the same problems if all stakeholders are notinvolved in their design. They are often not designed to take into account the


possibilities of using their output to improve what goes on in the tutorialclassroom. A ‘grand plan’ was envisaged by the University where a quickchangeover to a robust data gathering and reporting system would quicklylead to improvements through web-based automation of interactions withclients (mostly students) so that the system would yield high-level academicreturns. The reality that has been found by almost all sectors that take on aBPR (Business Process Re-engineering) exercise is that the data capture andreporting systems are non-trivial but still determine the possibility of leadingon to higher-level use of the information. A further finding from the casestudy is that the inclusion of stakeholders at all times in the project seemsnecessary to maintain focus on the vision and avoid intricate, but oftenunhelpful, detail from becoming the only outcome. It is also noted thateducation organisations seem to be composed of two streams ofmanagement: teachers and administrators. These two streams seem, in thecase study example at least, to have little idea of the priorities of the other.

8 REFERENCES

Davey, B. and Tatnall, A. (2003). Involving the Academic: A Test for Effective UniversityITEM Systems. Management of Education in the Information Age: The Role of ICT.Selwood, I., Fung A. C. W. and O’Mahony C. D. Assinippi Park, Massachusetts, KluwerAcademic Publishers / IFIP: 83-92.

Fuller, F. and William, M. (1994). Computers and Information Processing. Massachusetts,Boyd & Fraser.

Fulmer, C. L. and Frank, F. P. (1997). Developing Information Systems for Schools of theFuture. Information Technology in Educational Management for the Schools of the Future.Fung, A. C. W., Visscher A. J., Barta B. Z. and Teather D. C. B. London, Chapman & Hall/ IFIP: 122-130.

Lawrence, D. R., Shah, H. U. and Golder, P. A. (1997). Business Users and the InformationSystems Development Process. The Place of Information Technology in Management andBusiness Education. Barta, B. Z., Tatnall A. and Juliff P. London, IFIP / Chapman & Hall:118-127.

Lindgaard, G. (1994). Usability Testing and System Evaluation. London, Chapman & Hall.Martilla, L. A. and McLean, E. R. (1977). “Importance Performance Analysis.” Journal of

Marketing(January).Meredith, J. R. and Mantel, S. J. J. (1995). Project Management: a Managerial Approach.

New York, John Wiley & Sons Inc.Newton, L. and Visscher, A. J. (2003). Management Systems in the Classroom. Management

of Education in the Information Age: The Role of ICT. Selwood, I., Fung A. C. W. andO’Mahony C. D. Assinippi Park, Massachusetts, Kluwer Academic Publishers / IFIP: 189-194.

Post, G. V. (1999). Database Management Systems. London, McGraw Hill.Shah, S. K. (2001). “Improving Information Systems Performance Through Client Value

Assessment: A Case Study.” Review of Business 22(1/2): 37-42.Tatnall, A. (2001). Design Strategies. Information Technology in Educational Management:

Synthesis of Experience, Research and Future Perspectives on Computer-Assisted School


Information Systems. Visscher, A. J., Wild P. and Fung A. C. W. Dordrecht, TheNetherlands, Kluwer Academic Publishers: 97-113.

Tatnall, A. and Davey, B. (1995). Executive Information Systems in School Management: aResearch Perspective. World Conference on Computers in Education VI. WCCE’95.Liberating the Learner. Tinsley, J. D. and van Weert T. J. London, IFIP / Chapman &Hall: 579-588.

Quality Management in Virtual EducationManagement Indicators for Continuous Improvement

Lucía Melián, Víctor Padrón and Tomás F. EspinoUNIVERSITY OF LAS PALMAS DE GRAN [email protected]

Abstract:

Key words:

The important mission of the university institution in society as a bodycreating and transmitting knowledge justifies higher education being one ofthe main players in the application of new information and communicationstechnologies (ICTs) in an attempt to exploit the significant advantages thattheir development can bring to the activity. However, the virtual universityfaces the challenge of analyzing how the new educational format alters theknowledge learnt in quality management in traditional higher education. Newparameters, models and indicators will have to be defined, and newcompetitive bases will have to be promoted.

Total quality management, virtual higher education, student satisfaction.

1 INTRODUCTION

ICTs represent a unique opportunity for the management and creation ofknowledge. In effect, the Internet is a super-highway giving access to alltypes of information, encouraging interactive communications at a worldlevel, reinforcing and boosting understanding, comprehension andknowledge and so contributing to raising world quality at all levels.

From that basic premise, learning has also been subject to thisphenomenon. It is obvious that the university, as an institution creating andspreading knowledge, grasps this opportunity to strengthen its role. To thatend, it is experiencing and incorporating ICTs, especially the Internet, in itsteaching and research work, taking advantage of the flexibility, dynamismand interactivity of the medium to promote communication betweeneducational agents, both inside and outside the institution (Sánchez Allende,García Manso and Díaz Moreno, 2003).

142 Lucía Melián, Víctor Padrón and Tomás F. Espino

However, virtual learning in higher education defines a more competitivemarket since the wider offer contributes to the virtual student being ademanding customer classified as a consumer requiring a university productand service of excellent quality. As a result, this leads to the need to studyquality management within virtual universities. The academic literatureshows this question (Pond, 2001; Roffe, 2002).

2 TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN THE VIRTUALUNIVERSITY: A PROGRAM FOR RESEARCH

Total quality management can be defined as a management philosophythat bases its raison d’être on customer satisfaction as a winning formula toachieve a competitive advantage in the market, involving all the organizationand external agents such as suppliers and distributors, among others. Thepracticality of this model is that it is a multi-company managementphilosophy; in other words, applicable to any sector, and so, on askingwhether TQM has a role to play in virtual university education, the answeris, of course it has.

Firstly, the virtual university is still an institution with a managementdirected at accomplishing its organizational mission – the creation andtransmission of knowledge – which is performed in a digital context with itsown characteristics. Secondly, the main client, the student, is moredemanding than ever as a result of fierce competition in the market.Consequently, the student takes on a determining role as the key auditor ofthe academic institution’s actions and is demanding not only in terms ofquantity but also of quality because of the change in the nature of theservice.

With reference to the need and formula for, and the implications ofidentifying the customer’s requirements and demands, a review of theacademic and professional literature revealed a series of basic premises. Firstof all, quality from the customers’ perspective is defined as the differencebetween their expectations and their perceptions of the actions of thecompany under study. Secondly, quality is a multi-attribute concept; aconstruct of the second order resulting from the practice of the company in aset of areas of action, dimensions and attributes (Parasuraman, Zeithaml andBerry, 1985, 1988). In this respect, although some authors support theuniversality of one set of dimensions and attributes for every type of service(Parasuraman, Zeithaml y Berry, 1988), others support scales adapted to thespecific context of the study, justified, in part, by the very idiosyncrasy ofthe field of study (Carman, 1990; Babakus and Boller, 1992). In this respect,

Quality Management in Virtual Education 143

the differential nature of virtual education indicates the identification of thetypical attributes and dimensions (Table 1).

At this point, and based, on the one hand, on the acceptance of customersatisfaction as the reference point for the internal management of the virtualuniversity, and on the other, on the recognition of the properties of on-lineeducation, this work addresses two basic objectives: (1) the theoreticalproposal of a scale to measure quality in the university from the studentperspective and, (2) the identification of the competitive bases of the internalmanagement of the on-line educational institution that contributes tocustomer satisfaction.

To that end, it was decided to use a complementary methodology. Firstly,there was a review of the theoretical and practical works on success factorsin virtual education in the academic literature and an examination of virtualeducation websites in order to construct the scale of quality. Secondly, based


on the gap model of Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985), and after astudy of the literature related to the resources and capabilities necessary tooperationalize a virtual university, the criteria of internal management werelinked to the evaluative criteria of the student.

The works reviewed included the contributions of Lieblein (2000),Sánchez Allende, García Manso and Díaz Moreno (2003), Tascón Trujillo(2003), as well as the empirical research of McGorry (2002) and Song et al.(2004).

3 PARAMETERS OF ACTION IN VIRTUAL HIGHEREDUCTION: AREAS OF ACTION ANDCOMPETITIVE BASES

Given the idiosyncrasy of higher education in the digital context, there isan analysis to identify the criteria to evaluate organizational excellence fromthe student perspective, and the factors of its internal management thatcontribute to student satisfaction.

3.1 Attributes and Dimensions of Quality in Virtual HigherEducation

A review of the relevant academic and professional literature and anexamination of websites devoted to on-line university education led to theextraction of a model that presents quality as a higher order constructcomprising a set of dimensions – institutional quality, functional quality andrelational quality – and sub-dimensions with their respective explanatoryattributes.

As well as serving as a reference for organizational action, it offers theadded value of explaining what each section –dimension and sub-dimension-contributes to and subsequently attracts the client.

3.1.1 Institutional quality as the fundamental core

Institutional quality affects the actions of the on-line educationalinstitution regarding its making its activity known, projecting an image tothe market and seeking a competitive position.

It represents the basic management nucleus from which everyorganizational action materializes since it refers to the disposition to offerdetermined academic products and services as well as those that are non-academic but relevant to an educational activity; it materializes in the imageand the offer (Table 2).


3.1.2 Functional quality as a means to channel the activity

Functional quality evaluates the execution of the on-line educationalactivity; the form and method that brings institutional quality into effect isoperationalized. Therefore, in this dimension, we assess the institution’sfulfillment of its raison d’être. Three sub-dimensions are used for this:design, material and teaching (Table 3).


3.1.3 Relational quality as a vehicle to promote loyalty

Relational quality is the third level of organizational action to beevaluated. Although it could be included as part of functional qualitybecause it operationalizes university life, its identification has beenconsidered individually for one basic reason: it comprises the essence of thenew information and communications technologies, which is personalizationand interactivity.

In other words, the personalization and the interactivity are thesubdimensions of the relational quality. The personalization adapts theacademic offer to individual demands and the interactivity helps to do it.


The result of this philosophy is an attempt to create a virtual climate thatfavors the retention of the student as a customer that always finds a learningopportunity in the institution’s offer, which is developed throughpersonalization and interactivity (Table 4).

3.2 COMPETITIVE BASES OF THE VIRTUALUNIVERSITY FROM THE GAP MODEL

The Gap model, developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985)for physical environments and later modified by Zeithaml, Parasuraman andMalhotra (2000, 2002) for virtual environments, defines the quality


perceived by the user as the result of the size and direction of fourorganizational discrepancies or gaps associated with information, design,operations and communication: (a) Gap 1, the information gap, is thedifference between the users’ expectations and the managers’ perceptions ofthe users’ expectations (b) Gap 2, the design gap, is the difference betweenthe managers’ perceptions of the users’ expectations and the specificationsof quality established in the design, (c) Gap 3, the operations gap, is thedifference between the design specifications and the service actuallyprovided; and, (d) Gap 4, the communication gap, is the difference betweenthe service provided and that which is communicated to the users.

In this way, the quality perceived by the user, also called Gap 5, is theresult of the difference between the service provided and the expectationsand is the accumulated effect of the four previous gaps. This means that thegap model would combine the following parts in a common framework: (1)evaluation of e-quality and its consequences (the user part) and (2) theorganizational deficiencies that could reduce e-quality (the organizationpart).

Once the customer perspective is analyzed and taking this model as areference, its use in the case of the virtual university lies in extracting thekey aspects in the internal management in order to achieve optimum actionin the evaluative criteria that the student takes a reference.

These key aspects give a detailed description of the competitive basesthat a virtual university must control (Table 5).


4 CONCLUSION

There are two lessons to be learnt by reading this work. Studentsatisfaction with the virtual university requires optimum action from theinstitution in three areas: institutional quality (image and offer), functionalquality (design, material and teaching) and relational quality (personalizationand interactivity). To meet those demands, the university must strengthen aset of competitive bases, including the following: collaboration, training,participation of management, participation of teaching and administration,continuous improvement, information, alliances with strategic partners suchas other universities or companies for projects or exchanges. However, thecombination of TQM and virtual higher education constitutes an importantarea of study. In this respect, it is necessary to perform future analyses ofaspects such as the application of the EFQM, certification and accreditationsubject to the norms, and how strategic alliances contribute to excellence.


5 REFERENCES

Babakus, E. and Boller, G. W. (1992). An empirical assessment of the SERVQUAL scale.Journal of Business Research, 24, 253-268.

Carman, J. (1990). Consumer perceptions of the service quality: an assessment of theSERVQUAL dimensions. Journal of Retailing, 66 (1), 33-55.

Lieblein, E. (2000). Critical factors for successful delivery of online programs. The Internetand Higher Education, 3 (3), 161-174.

McGorry, S. Y. (2003). Measuring quality in online programs. The Internet and HigherEducation, 6 (2), 159-177.

Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A. & Berry, L. L. (1988). SERVQUAL: a multiple-item scalefor measuring consumer perceptions of service quality. Journal of Retailing, 64 (1), 12-40.

Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A. & Berry, L. L. (1985). A conceptual model of servicequality and its implications for future research. Journal of Marketing, 49, 41-50.

Pond, W. K. (2001). Twenty-first century education and training. Implications for qualityassurance. The Internet and Higher Education, 4 (3-4), 185-192.

Roffe, I. (2002). E-learning: engagement, enhancement and execution. Quality Assurance inEducation, 10(1), 40-50.

Sánchez Allende, J., García Manso, A. & Díaz Moreno, P. (2003). Educación virtual: elnuevo apoyo a los estudios universitarios. In L. Joyanes Aguilar & M. GonzálezRodríguez, (Eds.), II Congreso Internacional de Sociedad de la Información y delConocimiento, libro de actas (pp.284-289). Spain: McGrawHill.

Song, L., Singleton, E. S., Hill, J. R. & Koh, M. H. (2004). Improving online learning: studentperceptions of useful and challenging characteristics. The Internet and Higher Education, 7(1), 59-70.

Tascón Trujillo, C. (2003). Aulas virtuales en la Universidad. Nuevos roles y competenciasdocentes en la teleformación. In L. Joyanes Aguilar & M. González Rodríguez, (Eds.), IICongreso Internacional de Sociedad de la Información y del Conocimiento, libro de actas(pp.263-270). Spain: McGrawHill.

Zeithaml, V. A., Parasuraman, A. & Malhotra, A. (2002). Service quality delivery throughweb sites: a critical review of extant knowledge. Journal of the Academy of MarketingScience, 30 (4), 362-375.

Zeithaml, V.A., Parasuraman, A. & Malhotra, A. (2000). E-service quality: definition,dimensions and conceptual model. Working paper. Cambridge, MA: Marketing ScienceInstitute.

Emerging Knowledge Networks as a BackgroundFor Educational ManagementLearning from Information Industries

Mikko J. RuohonenDepartment of Computer Sciences, FI-33014 University of Tampere, [email protected]

Abstract: Knowledge-based organisations are facing constant changes in their operationsand management models. Industry structures are converging which means newbusiness processes and organizational structures. Hence, interorganisationalcompetitive advantage demands cross-organisational learning andmanagement. Knowledge workers need to create new competencies andmanagement processes need to be contextualized. Knowledge workcharacteristics are applied in the context of the information andcommunications technology (ICT) industry. Finally an explorative frameworkfor knowledge work leadership is developed and tentative empirical guidelinesare reviewed.

Key words: Knowledge work, ICT industry, inter-organisational competitive advantage,organisational contexts, management approaches.

1 TRANSFORMATION OF THE ICT INDUSTRY

The use of information and communications technology (ICT) hasemerged as an important target of management. In addition to improvingcost-effectiveness, it also offers great potential for innovations (Ruohonen &Salmela 1999). E-business is starting a change process in whichorganisations must think about operations models, organisational processes,and ways to meet and serve customers needs (Kalakota & Robinson 2001).

Functional hierarchies have turned to be more organised networkedstructures. The functional growth of a company is often based on buyingcompeting companies, mergers, or branch rationalisation to make strategic

152 Mikko J. Ruohonen

alliances. Mass production has turned into a customer-oriented operation andeven mass-customised (Pine & Gilmore 1997, Contractor & Lorange 2002).Different collaboration and outsourcing strategies will become moreimportant (Kern & Willcocks 2002). Collaboration is not just based ontransferring transactions between companies, it is also sharing knowledge,uniting and integrating processes and developing joint measures foroperations. We call it an era of knowledge management networks (Ruohonen& Salmela 1999, Warkentin et al. 2001).

The information production and services industry, later informationindustries, is one of the drivers and enablers of the aforementioned change.Different products and services of the companies which handle informationtechnology, telecommunications, digital contents industry and related fieldsprovide opportunities for new innovations. It means that a strongcommitment and ability to network reliably with their partner organisationsshould exist. The management of co-operation between organisationsbecomes a key factor in this challenge. Formal agreements betweenorganisations are just a start - the building of knowledge networks demandnew qualities both from organisations and their managers. The next fourqualities (Dyer & Singh 1998) are important as the source of the competitiveadvantage between the organisations:

Relation-spesific assets i.e. investing in the specific relationship ofpartners.Knowledge-sharing routines between partners.Complementary resources supplementing core competencies of eachpartner.Effective governance of the relationship.The knowledge creating companies should manage of all these qualities.

This is also the case when organizing your educational managementservices, for example, when the organisation either co-operates within anICT development project or has a constant outsourcing service relationshipwith a customer company. This is reflected, among others ways, in theadministration and maintenance of electronic exchanges, in the managementof communication network services or in the fostering the use of intranets.

Emerging Knowledge Networks as a Background for EducationalManagement

153

2 MANAGEMENT OF INTERORGANISATIONALCOMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

2.1 Relation-Specific Assets

The co-operative relationship between organisations is not merely bycontrol of formal agreements, as the organisations must also bind themselvesinto the long-term cooperation. Starting of outsourcing services begins theco-operation relationship with many options to change this relationship.Pricing, cost control and exit provisions just provide a skeleton for a tighterco-operative relationship. It must be possible to evaluate the outsourcingoperations and at the same time be possible to make selective outsourcingpossible. The outsourcing which produces added value leads to changing ofthe models and the co-operation relationship, and the cutting short of costsremains “business-as-usual” (Lacity & Hirscheim 1993, McFarlan & Nolan1995). The service provider must be able to learn the organisational modeland processes of customer organisations. At the same time customerorganisations have to be ready to become acquainted with the products andservice alternatives beyond the approach of traditional transaction costs. Theprofessionals’ working in the service organisation must be in line withcustomer responses. The service organisation should take care of thecustomer’s schedules and timetables. Both parties must accept that whenbuilding co-operation, one must commit oneself to invest in that relationshipcontinuously, both economically and mentally. Very few co-operativeprojects start moving without incidents and succeed by a first attempt. Thesuccess of the co-operation is strengthened especially by mutual trust whichis claimed to be a necessary condition to the genuine co-operation project.

2.2 Knowledge-Sharing Routines Between Partners

Currently many organisations organise their information systems servicesbehind common web-based portals. This takes place, for example, in thepublic administrative and educational services, supply of the tourismindustry, procurement of the car industry, paper, metal and electronicsindustries. Unfortunately these exchanges or portals tend to be only cyber-crossings. Hence, the customer arrives at this crossing from which hechooses the following direction and never returns. The exchange ofknowledge should be two-directional in knowledge networks. Stakeholdersmust learn from each other for improved service of customers and bettercompetitiveness. If the holder of the portal considers the meeting place only


as the strengthening of his own position on the market, the portal becomesrather a bulletin board which is full of ads. However, if the portal is designedto be a problem-solving space it requires community knowledge sharingpractice of the portal partners. The transfer of customer knowledge, forexample, to competitors, is extremely difficult because knowledgeinterrelates to context. Many organisations, such as Avnet/Marshall, haveoperated within the field and developed their services continuously for along time towards proactiveness, right pricing of services and anticipation ofcustomer needs (El Sawy et al. 1999, Turban et al. 2002). So the added valueis not based on control of the transaction cost, it is searched beyond controlof the traditional value chain (Stabell & Fjeldstad 1998).

2.3 Complementary Resources or Capabilities

The resource-based theory from the firm (Barney 1991) calls for thoseresources which are valuable, rare, hard to copy and effectively organisedfrom the point of view of the competition. The core competence has oftenbeen created in time, self-steered and even by chance. It is particularlydifficult for management to see the importance of competencies created atthe floor level. The learning created in action and while facing customersprovides a foundation for success. However, these competencies can becomeobsolete if competitive or technological changes affect our businessenvironment. The competitive advantage of knowledge networks is createdthrough a clustering process in which two or more organisations withcomplementary competencies begin to compete against other competitors’clusters with similar interests. This creates a match-making and groupingprocess. First the exchange of knowledge will be clustered around differenttechnology options but at the following stage one already must think whatkind of customer groups we are taking care of. The complementarycompetencies can open new markets and technology areas. Traditionally weavoid situations in which espionage or stealing of corporate corecompetencies is obvious. On the other hand, there are viewpoints accordingto which external competencies should be produced in the hyper-competitivebusinesses (D’Aveni 1995, Matusik & Hill 1998).) Japanese carmanufacturers are able to distribute knowledge inside a trusted networkwhile in the US business environment formal agreements and sanctionsdominate business (Dyer and Singh 1998).

2.4 Effective Governance of the Relationship

Competitive advantage is not achieved if costs of cooperation exceed thelevel of other similar ones by competitors. So a project, such as the service


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portal, must be governed effectively, for both the technical infrastructure andthe contents (i.e. services). Co-operation rules of practice must be createdwhile different stakeholder groups control their own interests. It is good tohave a mediating organisation - an official broker which functions formallyor based on partner relationships. The ways of action have pointed to personsin charge of organisations and the processes must be clear and explicit toevery partner. The broker must be able to operate fast without constantlyarranging meetings when cooperation proceeds and the customer interfacechanges. Situations in which this customer setting has to be evaluated andchecked will be created continuously.

3 A FRAMEWORK FOR KNOWLEDGE WORKLEADERSHIP

3.1 Contextual Approaches Needed

The ICT industry has been stamped by a strong turnover. The knowledgeworkers have looked for more inviting jobs for themselves and for newpossibilities opening in the field. The motivation base is, or at least has been,mainly economical. Companies have had to persuade the experts of the neweconomy by better salaries and share options. A number of ICT companieshave experienced the first phase of the knowledge company lifespan. In thisphase nearly any way of working went through and customers were willingto pay for that. This was very evident in late 1990s in the so-called dotcom-companies. Search for “the new economy experts” ended up with acceptanceof poor quality management and productivity guidelines. Projectmanagement and business know-how was not really appreciated while it wasmore interesting to strive for Initial Public Offerings and sky-rocketing riseof shareholder value. Most of the companies were very small in size, with nobusiness management experience and personnel of very young age andnarrow qualifications. Hence, there was no clear management practice. Thecompanies were more like bunches of good friends or families. However,now ICT companies also try to create other attraction factors than economicadvantage. The economic advantages are a kind of hygienic factors as suchbut in addition to them the sensibility of the work and ways of action, thecharacter of the work community, the culture of the organisation andmanagement style and the general attractiveness of the business branch areevaluated. Knowledge management is also the evaluation of your companymanagement approaches, not just technology. The new start-up companies


enjoy the advantage of quick implementation of new practices. Thoseorganisations with a longer time in business have probably created differentorganisational rules which are slow to change. More experience andknowledge is needed concerning management practices in differentinformation industry contexts (Ruohonen et al. 2003).

3.2 The Explorative Framework

The following generic framework is an exploration of the empiricalfindings from case companies (Ruohonen et al. 2003). The framework isproposed to be continuously evaluated against empirical findings andelaborated to a more advanced description. The dimensions for categorizingdifferent contextual knowledge work management approaches are defined byexternal variety (competitive business forces) and internal variety (personneldifferences). Competition has put pressure on all information organisations,but especially on those which made a fresh and glorious start (dotcom-companies). Most of the companies have failed now and faced the rules ofcompetition. Competition makes companies aware of good quality andproject deadlines. Personnel differences refer to those emerging challengeswhich are rising from differences in age, culture, job career, professionalbackgrounds, even gender and race in some societal contexts.

Figure 1. A framework for knowledge work leadership approaches


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3.2.1 Nice guy and family management

This corner of the framework represents the typical start-up company. Inthose companies customer intimacy might be great and knowledge sharing iseasy while the company is small in size. All people can participate in jointproblem solving and project sessions. However, in these companiesrecognition of complementary resources is seldom done explicitly. Normallythere is a shortage of resources which force buying companies to use theseservices. Governance of projects, such as e-commerce projects, is normallypoor. Quality is low and timetables are flexible. These companies firstprovide value due to market inequivalencies, but when markets develop andcustomers learn to demand more, quality management becomes problematic.Management of people is based on “nice guy feelings”, normally managerialstructures are avoided and there are no systematic administrative processes.Office hours are very flexible and people like to use their freetime with theircolleagues or even stay overnight in the office. Management follows theguidelines of how to work with your friends or even family members.

3.2.2 Diversity management

This describes the situation which has been typical for some of thegrowing dotcom companies. They have increased their size by buyingsmaller companies and in the same time got publicly listed. The rapid growthhas created problems of communication and management structures and alsoclash of cultures. Many small family management companies have beendestroyed by these acquisition maneuvers. Interorganisational competitiveadvantage emerges from the four competitive factors previously described.Relation-specific assets grow but they are fragmented according to certainspecialist and competence groups i.e. customers are not really customers ofthe new merger-based company. Projects are more diverse in nature anddemand variety of personnel competencies. Knowledge sharing might growproblematic due to rapid growth and different learning styles of personnel. Itis increasingly more difficult to gather complementary resources for a largercustomer project. Governance can still be poor, and that affects the qualityprovided. The challenge is diversity management, both projects and humanresources become more diverse and managers need to know more aboutdifferent psychological, social and cultural phenomena which are reflected intheir daily work.


3.2.3 Professional practice management

This corner is the possibility for a rather homogenous personnel in hardercompetition. If companies can create more systematic approaches, improvetheir strategies, structures and processes in line with customer demands theymight survive. However, this means that some of the workers are not happywhile they can not do what they want. Project managers need to be aware ofproject deadlines, strong enough to resist last minute changes and veryauthoritative when people are producing over-quality. The advantage ofthese companies is longer customer relationships which have educated bothparties to do their best. Professional rules, patterns and even support systemscan help knowledge sharing inside the company and with customers.Complementary competencies are identified and constant review of servicequality is executed. Governance is more systematic but enables freedomwhen necessary. In these companies world-class innovations are possible.Professional practice management develops the company further.

3.2.4 Total quality and learning management

This is the most challenging while it requires both the management ofbusiness competition but also different diverse personnel managementapproaches. These companies are normally the big players in the field whichprovides many branches of services to customer companies. They normallyalso have very diverse personnel working abroad. These businesses need totake care of both “old” systems and emerging new economy systems. Theyanalyse, support and consult strategy making. Many of these take care ofoutsourcing and application service provision. They hire people for customercompanies. Relation-specific assets are usually managed by accountmanagers who are responsible for certain customer projects. Projects andcustomers are categorized. They have initiated both formal (IT-based) andinformal (face-to-face) knowledge sharing practices with informationsystems support. Complementary resources are strived through teambuilding, task forces and evolving organisational arrangements. Governanceuses total quality management and critical chain reviews. Quality is definedeither by excellence criteria or with meeting customer demands. In the sametime these companies face a clear threat of becoming too bureaucratic,therefore active learning management processes are needed too. Especiallyprocesses which support reflection are needed. Both quality and learningmanagement makes the manager an acrobat on one hand trying to keep costsand schedules, while on the other hand enabling creativity, freedom of ideasand professional learning.


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4 FINAL REMARKS

A theoretical framework was reviewed for emerging knowledge workand leadership cultures in the ICT industry. Competition and increasingpressure to make network economy demands new competencies.Interorganisational competitive advantage requires cross-organisationallearning and working processes. Knowledge work has to face productivitychallenges. Managers need to identify the context they are working in orderto align with personnel competences. An explorative framework wasprovided and described against theoretical groundings and empirical findingsof an on-going research project. The framework will be elaborated withfurther research on emerging knowledge work and management practices.

5 REFERENCES

Barney, J.B. (1991) Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal ofManagement 17(1), 99-120.

Contractor, F.J. & Lorange, P. (2002) The growth of alliances in the knowledge-basedeconomy. International Business Review 11, 485-502.

D’Aveni, R. A. (1995): Hypercompetition: Managing the dynamics of strategic maneuvering.New York: Free Press

Dyer, J.H. & Singh, H. (1998): The relational view: Cooperative strategy and sources ofinterorganisational competitive advantage. Academy of Management Review 23(4) 660-679.

El Sawy, O.A., Malhotra, A., Gosan, S. & Young K.M. (1999): IT-Intensive Value Innovationin the Electronic Economy: IT-Intensive Value Innovation in the Electronic Economy:First Prize, 1997 SIM International Paper Awards Competition.

Kalakota, R. & Robinson, M. (2001): E-Business 2.0. Addison Wesley Longman, Reading,Massachusetts.

Kern, T. & Willcocks, L. (2002) Exploring relationships in information technologyoutsourcing. European Journal of Information Systems 11, 3-19.

Lacity, M.C. & Hirscheim, R. (1993) Information systems outsourcing myths, metaphors andrealities. Wiley, Chichester.

Matusik, S.F., Hill, C.W.L. (1998): The Utilization of Contingent Work, KnowledgeCreation, and Competitive Advantage. Academy of Management Review 23(4), 680-697.

McFarlan, F.W. & Nolan, R.L. (1995) How to Manage an IT Outsourcing Alliance. SloanManagement Review 36(2), 9-23.

Gilmore, J.H. & Pine, J. II (1997): Four Faces of Mass Customization, Harvard BusinessReview Jan-Feb 1997, 91 -101.

Ruohonen, M. & Salmela, H. (1999): Yrityksen tietohallinto. Edita, Helsinki.Ruohonen, M., Kultanen, T., Lahtonen, M., Rytkönen, T. and Kasvio, A. (2003) Identity and

Diversity Management for New Human Resource Approaches in the ICT industry. In F.Avallone, H. Sinangil & A. Caetano (eds) Identity and Diversity in Organisations. Milan:Guerini Studio.


Stabell, C.B. & Fjeldstad, Ö, D. (1998) Configuring value for competitive advantage, onchains, shops, and networks. Strategic Management Journal 19, 413-437.

Turban, E., King, D., Lee, J., Warkentin, M. & Chung, H. (2002) Electronic Commerce – aManagerial Perspective. Prentice Hall.

Warkentin, M., Sugumaran, V. & Bapna,R. (2001) E-knowledge networks forinterorganizational collaborative e-business. Logistics Information Management 14(1/2),149-162.

A Collaborative Environment for New LearningEcology and E-Pedagogy

Toshio Okamoto and Mizue KayamaGraduate School of Information Systems, The University of Electro-communications, JapanSchool of Network and Information, Senshu University, [email protected]

Abstract: Nowadays, we realize change in learning ecology by making progress inInternet technologies and advanced media. A learning ecology moves fromindividual learning to collaborative learning via the Internet. So we are urgedto create a new e-pedagogy. This paper proposes and discusses functionalityfor collaborative learning, then discuss what e-pedagogy is, based on newlearning ecology. In this discussion, we emphasize the re-use function of datalogging occurring during a collaborative learning process. Moreover, weconsider the educational meanings and methodology to explore essentials ofcollaborative learning. We introduce a platform for a collaborative learningenvironment called RAPSODY-EX (REX) that we have developed. Thefeatures and functions of this platform are described, and then we discuss theextendibility of the platform for a collaborative environment from the issue ofe-pedagogy we propose.

Key words: e-pedagogy, learning ecology, collaborative learning, knowledge transfer,

1 INTRODUCTION

The Internet is becoming a catchphrase in the world of school education,which makes distance education possible to anybody at anytime and fromanywhere. As such, a new learning style ‘e-Learning’ emerged under thenew umbrella concept of ‘Learning Ecology and Pedagogy’, where theInternet raises the level of communications and collaborations among peoplevia technology. Nowadays, the word/system of ‘e-Learning’ is rapidlyspreading due to popularization of the Internet. As for advantages of the

162 Toshio Okamoto and Mizue Kayama

Internet, people can communicate with each other anytime and anywhere.Moreover people can share, rebuild, stock and reuse various kind ofinformation. Here, it seems that the concept of e-Learning gets citizenship insociety instead of CAI (Computer Assisted Instruction). Along with thisstream/trend, we recognize the necessity of construction of a new learningsociety such as learning individuals, learning organization and learningcommunity. Above mentioned, we can say that the Internet is a kind ofTreasure Island of educational resources from a worldwide stance, though itincludes much harmful information.

PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY

The aim of this study is to propose the concept of new learning ecologyand e-Pedagogy in the center of collaborative learning via the Internet. Alearning environment where includes various IT devices and some kinds ofcomputer network (Internet, LAN, WAN, and so on) has produced a newlearning ecology such as exploring/discovery learning, collaborative learningand so on. According to these changing situations, a new and persuasivepedagogy has to be created. In this paper the idea of e-pedagogy is proposed.Based on this concept, we introduce the RAPSODY-EX (REX), which is aplatform for a collaborative learning environment (Okamoto, Cristea, &Kayama 2000). A distributed collaborative learning (CL) environment isexpected to facilitate learning activities for knowledge building and meta-cognition through mutual understanding among learners. In thisenvironment, management/integration of the learning resources/informationbecomes an important task for the purpose of promoting learners’ decision-making activities and teachers’ mentoring activities. The especially stressedfunctions are as follows: for evaluating learning process, restoringcollaborative activities, plug-in API, referring/reusing information and so on.

3 NEW LEARNING ECOLOGY AND E-PEDAGOGY

Varieties of knowledge will be taking a form of multimedia in a highlytechnological, network society. And this knowledge can be obtained throughso-called VOD (Video On Demand). Moreover, wide varieties ofeducational applications and teaching systems will be provided. Theproblem, however, is that we need the ability to grasp the essence of thatknowledge. Also this knowledge should not be enclosed only in a humanunderstanding of the world. An ability to create a new knowledge out of thatunderstanding is now sought. The knowledge in a closed textbook will be

2


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transferred to this real world. It is important to form live knowledge. Tomake science and technology attractive to youth needs a synthesizing pipe,that is, a systematic resource to totally canalize the scientific minded to thatnew knowledge.

pedagogy based on the following educational considerations:Topic oriented structure: contents are synthesized according to topics.Many topics are organized systematically and make comprehensivecontents as IT-education.Scenario oriented structure: making scenario-like contents and offeringwell balanced unit subjects.Minimum essentials: extracting minimum essential unit subjects as“informatics for all” and making a comprehensive subject together withother common subjects.Comprehensive subjects based on existential subjects: an integratedsubject, making a comprehensive selection by taking units as thoughtnecessary from other subjects such as math, science and so on.These are views to make a comprehensive subject. Therefore, it is hard to

say what is best. Information technology, however, is a familiar matter sothat it should be something attractive to children/ students’ mind. It shouldnot be what sounds fictitious.

4 WHAT IS COLLABORATIVE LEARNING

4.1 Some Definitions and facilities

In terms of what Roschelle & Teasley defined as “collaboration” to be“.... a coordinated, synchronous activity that is the result of a continuedattempt to construct and maintain a shared conception of a problem”(Roschelle & Teasley 1995). Dillenbourg takes up the following 4 points asthe features of CL, which are a situation, interactions, process (learningmechanism) and effects of CL (Dillenbourg 1999). Cowie & Rudduck notethat “collaboration in leaning is the opportunity to learn through the

a)b)c)

d)

In the Post-Modern age, our new learning viewpoint is as follows.Group modeling and collaboration for social activities.Exploration-minded experimental learning.Learning (urged) by asking, explaining and teaching to make a newinsight.Interactive diagnosis and open learning model.From those aspects, we must construct the curriculum with a view for e-


expression and exploration of diverse ideas and experiences in cooperativecompany....” (Cowie & Ruddick 1998). It is not about competing withfellow members of the group and winning, but using the diverse resourcesavailable in the group to deepen understanding, sharpen judgment andextend knowledge.

In consideration of those views, Okamoto pointed out that CL shouldemphasize 1) process/situated context, 2) individual learning achievementsuch as knowledge acquisition, skill formation and concept formation,learning set, 3) versatile cognition for both of holistic and serialistic thinkingschema, 4) understandings of objective relationships among self/you/he orshe, and 5) effects of observation learning (reflection/self-monitoring)(Okamoto et al. 2000). CL doesn’t depend on place and time. Especially inan Internet environment, the type of asynchronous ecology of CL is moreuseful rather than the synchronous one such as a videoconference. Moreover,in the process of CL, individual learning may be sometimes embedded,based on a certain curriculum in schools, and vise versa. Table 1 shows thedimensions on features of CL.

In general, we can divide the activities in collaborative learning into twoclasses of cognitive level and social level. Based on these activities, theresources required in a CL environment are as follows:

Technologically mediated dialogue channelShared workplace for a groupPersonal workplaceLearning materials/ learning toolsAnalyzing tools of data/informationLearning materials/ learning toolsRepository/memory for data/information revealed in CLReference channel for the collaborative repositoryModeling tools for monitoring the process

4.2. Methods for Supporting Collaborative Activities

There are two approaches on CSCL. One is to emphasize the interactionsamong learners. Another is to stress the efficiency of knowledge acquisition


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and the certainty of knowledge acquisition. The former approach aims atclarifying the effect of an interaction and promoting the effect of aninteraction as well. There are many researchers focusing on realizing thetransparent and seamless purpose of efficient communication. For example,they use agent technology, natural language analysis, statistical text miningand others. The latter approach focuses on providing a medium for theinteractions among learners so as to promote and/or increase the efficiencyof knowledge acquisition. There are various functions and mechanismsdeveloped for these purposes. In order to support collaborative activities, thefollowing functions are necessary:

Offering the workspace of an individual and the workspace of a group.Supporting mutual transfer data, information and knowledge in theworkspaces.Including various information media (libraries, applications, tools and soon) to the platform.Shared screen image / shared operation.

5 A PLATFORM FOR THE CL: RAPSODY-EX

RAPSODY-EX (REX) is a platform of a CL learning environment. Ourfocus is on the management function for a collaborative workplace in CL.The features of REX are as follows:

Management of Learning Session: this feature enables a student toparticipate in collaborative activities on REX.The communication library (API) for the shared application/tool: thisfeature allows plug-in applications/tools for CL (shared applications) toREX.The hierarchical control mechanism of learning log data: this featureallows distribution/ record/reference of learning logs based on thelearning condition/context.

The main function of this platform is the management of collaborativeworkplaces and learning sessions (Kayama & Okamoto 2002, UEC 2004).Once a CL mediator/instructor defines the collaborative activity on REX, alearning session can be generated in REX for the learners. For each learner, alearning session is instantiated on each REX client. A learner expresseshis/her opinions/views through shared applications on a learning session. Acollaborative workplace, containing two or more learning sessions, keepsand manages the context of CL. The REX server specifically performs themanagement of a collaborative workplace and a learning session, consistingof some management modules for different information on REX. Moreover,


it also contains a maintenance module with a set of CL cases and amanagement module of a learning session

A learning session represents a space for group member activities. Eachlearning session is generated as a response to the learner’s needs /instructional goals on REX. After this, it is registered to the REX server. Alearning session contains one or more shared applications representing a unitof CL activities on REX. A learning session is described by an attribute anda state. The conceptual scheme of a learning session is shown in Figure 1.An attribute is a set of information used for characterizing a learning session.This includes some static information, such as the start time of CL, theparticipating member of a learning session, the name of a shared application,and a URI (Uniformed Resource Indicator) to the substance of a sharedapplication.

Figure 2. The conceptual scheme of a learning session

The assurance of keeping learning context and the reuse of learning logsare realized by this hierarchical management of learning logs. Additionally,some components of the collaborative environment (eg. shared applications/tools, and learning management tools for CL) are implemented more easilyand effectively.


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6 MODELING OF COLLABORATIVE ACTIVITIES INREX

6.1 Learning Activities of CL

Generally, CL by the Internet enables synchronous and asynchronouslearning modes. In an asynchronous learning pattern, the communication/interaction medium consists of an e-mail system, a BBS and others.However in a synchronous learning mode, communication/ interactionamong learners is achieved via simultaneous learning tools.

In this research, CL is defined from a different aspect. The simultaneity isemphasized in our case. A synchronized type is defined as an extended caseof a synchronized type. Thus, the design principle of REX has to maintain acollaborative workplace. A learning session is an operative object of acollaborative workplace in REX. In this object, the learning activities areexpressed as the series of actions for achieving the learning goal. Thelearning activities for a student are represented as follows:

<Join> ::= acts participating in CL<Suspend> ::= acts which do_not/ are_impossible_to contribute togeneration of an outcome of CL although learner has participated in CL.<Leave> ::= acts which stop the participation for the CL.<Refer>::= acts which refer to the outcome and/or the process of CL.

6.2 Learning States of CL

The state of CL is represented by combining four activities: Practicing,Broken, Accomplished and Aborted. The feature of each state is summarizedin Table 2.

A Practicing state in the process is to achieve a learning goal, which isdefined as a set of Join mode, Suspend mode and Leave mode. A Brokenstate in the process is to achieve a learning goal. In this state all of the groupmembers are in Suspend mode. At an Accomplished state, a learning goal is


achieved. In this state, all of the group members are in Leave mode. At anAborted state, a learning goal cannot be achieved and any learning activitywill not happen. In this state, all of the group members are in Leave mode.Moreover, a Refer state is executed at all learning states.

6.3 The Functions for Collaborative Modeling by REX

Some functions are necessary for smooth and efficient interaction/communication and effective acquisition of some kinds of meta-cognitionskills. The first function should be the identification of learning states andlearning activities at a collaborative workplace, which offers useful andvaluable information for CL support. Thus, the platform can apply someappropriate support for a group/learner.

We assume that it is important to secure the information shared amonglearners in CL. Shared information here includes result/production/ solutionduring learning, which are set as attributes of a learning session at REX.Table 3 shows examples of status of a learning session. In this situation, thesimultaneity of learning activity is guaranteed. Action is used for theoperation/screen_image shared among learners during CL. Action history isused for maintenance of a series of learning activities. Then the informationis stored as status of a learning session. Status is held in the result/production/solution of CL. Therefore information can be offered as a currentlearning context to a newcomer in CL. Status is also recorded as a snapshot.REX shows a user result/production/solution at the current state. Moreover,REX shows a series of results/productions/solutions by using snapshots. Byusing this type of information, a learner is able to check the past learningsituation for his/her reflection and confirmation. Tag shows integratedlearning result of a learning session consisting of some shared applications.


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On the other hand, we consider the situation where the simultaneity oflearning activities is not guaranteed. In this situation action history, snapshot(s), and tag are also used for supporting CL. Action history is used for acheck of a series of action during CL. These actions were previouslyperformed by another group of learners.

Snapshot(s) is used for checking the result/production/solution inlearning processes, the learning progress and the change of learning context.A tag is used for examining the results/productions/solutions in learningprocesses of a learning session.

7 CONCLUSIONS

In this paper, we propose e-pedagogy based on new learning ecology anda platform for a collaborative learning environment. First the idea of learningecology and e-pedagogy are discussed. Then, some fundamental functions ofCL are considered. Furthermore REX is shown as an example of the CLplatform and the extendibility of this platform is discussed.

In this paper, a CL is considered with the simultaneity of learningactivities for achieving a learning goal. Based on the proposed e-pedagogy,the learning activities in CL are examined and the model for CL wasdiscussed.

We have started our important research in consideration of ourexperiences (Okamoto, Cristea & Kayama 2001), and are gradually buildingthe specified items towards a future standardization (ISO/IEC 2004). Theconsiderations and issues we discussed in this paper are just the first stepstowards standardization. Our future research directions are to provide atechnical mechanism to reuse the learning logs (status, action history,snapshots and tag) for supporting CL and to realize the concept of e-pedagogy in this learning ecology.

8 REFERENCES

Cowie, H. and Ruddick, J. (1998) “Co-operative Group Work; an overview”, BP EducationalService, Sheffield University.

Dillenbourg, P. (1999). Collaborative learning - Cognitive and Computational Approaches”Pergamon.

ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 WG2 (Collaborative Technologies): http://collab-tech.jtc1sc36.org/Kayama M. & Okamoto T. (2002) “Collaborative learning support in the internet learning

space: a platform for a learning environment and knowledge management in the


educational context”, International Journal of Industry and Higher Education, Vol.16,No.4, pp.249-pp.259.

Okamoto T., Cristea A.I. & Kayama M. (2001) Future integrated learning environments withMultimedia, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning (Ed. Robert Lewis), BlackwellScience, Vol.17, No. 1, pp.3-12.

Okamoto, T., Cristea, A.I. and Kayama, M. (2000) “Towards Intelligent Media-OrientedDistance Learning and Education Environments”, Proceedings of ICCE2000.

Roschelle, J. and Teasley, S.D. (1995) “The construction of shared knowledge incollaborative problem solving”, In C.E. O’Malley (Ed.) Computer-Supported Collaborativelearning, pp.69-97, Springer-Verlag.

UEC (2004) http://www.ai.is.uec.ac.jp/ipa/ipa3/

Information Society in ExtremaduraTowards a Future of Solidarity and More Freedom

Jose A. DiazDigital Literacy Plan, Junta of Extremadura

Abstract: This paper describes a strategic project for an information society in theSpanish Region of Extremadura. One important aspect of this project was thedevelopment of GNU/LinEx and associated Free Software. The paperdescribes the advantages of this Free Software.

Keywords: Public intranet, regions, educational technology network, Free Software.

1 INTRODUCTION

A strategic project in Extremadura to access the Information Society isbased upon the principles of networking and technological literacy, and itsmain aim is better life quality for Extremadura inhabitants, from an equalityand freedom viewpoint.

For this reason a series of actions have been taken in the Region. Onthe one hand a powerful communication infrastructure has been developed:the Regional Intranet. This intranet is able to connect more than 1400 pointsdistributed throughout the 383 localities belonging to our AutonomousCommunity. On the other hand programs reaching educational and socio-economic targets have been started.

The keystone of this strategy was clearly found in education.Information and communication technologies will contribute in a decisiveway to improve the quality of education. So, the design of the EducationalTechnological Network (RTE) started off by providing one computer pertwo students in Secondary Schools. The Technological Literacy Plan (PAT)was also designed to take into account the needs of groups to whom this new

172 Jose A. Diaz

technological world was less familiar. With this aim its 33 New Centres ofKnowledge are distributed throughout the territory of Extremadura,especially in rural areas. Finally, in order to include the other social layers,Vivernet‘s task is that of supporting business in the digital era, the NewInitiatives Promotion Centre being responsible for analysing and guiding theInformation Society Strategies of Extremadura, depending on the presentchanging circumstances.

In this set of circumstances the GNU/LinEx Project (Free Software) isframed on this context as an answer to the need to avoid externaldependencies, like proprietary software, which are not subject to any kind ofpublic control.

2 CONTEXT: THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC FEATURES OFEXTREMADURA

Extremadura possesses a land area of and a population of1,073,574, meaning a population density of 25.78 inhabitants per Theregional territory makes up 8.3 % of Spain but its population is 2.6 % of thetotal. Population is distributed throughout 383 localities, but only Badajoz(136,316 inhabitants) has more than 100,000 inhabitants. 57 % of people inExtremadura live in villages of less than 10,000 people. According topopulation, Cáceres is the second town with 82,034 inhabitants and theregional capital, Mérida is third with 51,056 inhabitants.

The economy of Extremadura has been undergoing an evolution in recentyears. It was the best Spanish Autonomous Community in regard toEuropean convergence in the areas of educational, social and businessprojects during the period 1985-1999. These projects are bringing aboutdevelopment, positioning the region at the same level of equality andfreedom, based on the premise of introducing the region in the newtechnologies revolution. They are fostering the possibility of coping with theknowledge revolution now and in the future.

3 THE INFORMATION SOCIETY GLOBALSTRATEGY OF EXTREMADURA

In 1998 during the general politics debate the President of Extremadura,Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra, announced that the ExtremaduraGovernment’s efforts would be directed towards positioning the regionamong the leaders of the technological revolution known as the informationsociety. Such a revolution would involve the whole population and it would

Information Society in Extremadura 173

be based upon the principles of networking and technological literacy, inorder to improve citizens’ welfare.

We had lost our chance to be included in the industrial revolutions andthis was the moment to take advantage of an extraordinary chance to jointhis revolution. The knowledge society was not based on commodities likecoal or oil, but information and computer networks. This situation positionedany individual person at the same level everywhere, and with the samesuccessful opportunities, regardless of the place where the they lived.

The proposal was ambitious, and a series of actions was taken to providethe region with telecommunications infrastructures as well as with thenecessary programs to reach the educational and socio-economic aims.

3.1 Technological Framework: Intranet of Extremadura

Development of the ‘Intranet of Extremadura’ started in 1999 with themain aim of providing high bandwidth access (2 Mb) in regional localitiesthrough the public educational centres, public health centres and publicadministrative centres managed by the Government of Extremadura. At theend of 2001, the intranet was fully set through 1800 network points and allExtremadura localities, almost 400, have access to high bandwidth and highspeed Internet connections.

Technically speaking, the intranet is an optical fibre ring which connectseach public administrative centre to a single access point which is located inthe Data Processing Centre, Mérida. Radio link technology is used wherethere is a lack of optical fibre. In this way, there is a network of transmitting-receiving antennas throughout the region connecting the single access pointto the different localities. In a similar way WIFI technology is used toconnect separated buildings of each educational centre in certain localitieswhere the intranet is accessed in a central building, but there are otherdependent buildings around the same centre.

In the future there is a possibility of using the remaining bandwidth of theintranet to offer Internet connections to localities which lack high speedtechnologies like ADSL.

3.2 Strategic Framework

While the design of the regional intranet was being prepared, a set ofprograms were started off, addressed different areas of the Society ofExtremadura. These programs cope with the technological literacy of thepopulation, the promotion of business opportunities based on newtechnologies, the spreading of information society and new technologies, andimprovement of the education system.

174 Jose A. Diaz

3.2.1 Technological Literacy Plan

The Technological Literacy Plan (PAT) was first started by the RegionalGovernment at the end of 1999. Its main aim was to provide each citizenwith universal access to information technologies. The technological literacyprocess is based upon a structure of centres, called New Centres ofKnowledge (NCC). Throughout the region there are 33 new centres ofknowledge, especially in the most far-from-city rural areas and the outlyingurban areas.

These centres offer to their users, mainly adults, training in newtechnologies according to their needs. Generally speaking they cope withbasic use of computing tools. Remarkably, we could say that a high numberof old people have learnt to use computers, to surf the web, and to managetheir email accounts in these centres.

There is a computer technician, but also a public relations officer in eachNCC. There are also seven computers with Internet connections and theusual peripherals – scanner, printer, digital camera, etc. Since GNU/LinExwas introduced the centres have used Free Software without having anyproblems. Since GNU/LinEx began 50,000 people have participated inevents designed by the NCCs. The users have welcomed the operatingsystem in a positive way.

3.2.2 Vivernet

Vivernet, “The New Era Business Laboratory” was born in the secondhalf of 2000. Its main aim consists of promoting new technologyentrepreneurs, in its headquarters, physically settled in Badajoz and Cáceres,the new business stays for an average of 15 months. The entrepreneursreceive legal and financial training, and also technological training.

Vivernet spreads the use of GNU/LinEx, and develops Free Software forthe regional SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) in training courses andevents related to this kind of business software.

3.2.3 New Initiatives Promotion Centre

Perhaps the New Initiatives Promotion Centre is a less known projectbecause it works directly for the Public Service. It is responsible foranalysing and defining Information Society strategies. It also promotes theuse and development of information technology in different social areas.During the last 2 years the Centre has developed the eExtremadura program,which is an action financed by European funds. This program consists ofjoining together different regional agents – trade unions, enterprises, town


councils, university – in order to develop new technology projects. In thesecond convocatory after the introduction of GNU/LinEx, more than 50projects from a total of 400 mentioned use of GNU/LinEx or Free Software.

Today, the New Initiatives Promotion Centre is managing technicaldevelopment of the GNU/LinEx project. This project has as partners theEducation, Science and Technology Regional Ministry, the New Centres ofKnowledge, Vivernet, and Fundecyt.

3.2.4 Educational Technological Network

The Educational Technological Network is the most characteristic projectof the Education, Science and Technology Regional Ministry. Its main aimconsists of introducing the educational system into the knowledge society.Action was taken to train teachers in the use of ICT, and to promote creationof content to be shared on the net (www.extremadurasi.org) .

The most ambitious action consists of changing the concept of‘computing classroom’ into one of ‘computer into the classroom’. Thismeans a ratio of one computer per two students in Secondary EducationCentres, a fact that has an influence even in the architectural design of thenew buildings. The classrooms are larger and the building structure supportsthe needs for electric and networking wiring. In the classroom, there is a newlarger design of desk for computers and for the students’ usual needs. In theold centres the design of the desk is slightly smaller.

Getting to this point, there was a need to solve the problem of software tobe installed on the computers. Proprietary software was not a solution and aneconomical alternative for 80,000 machines was needed. That alternativewas Free Software.

4 GNU/LINEX PROJECT

At the end of 2001 the intranet was fully operational, the projects of theInformation Society Secretary were consolidated, and 14 new educationalcentres were almost finished, according to the 1-computer-per-2-studentratio. About 400 machines were to be introduced in the new centres.

We had not stopped growing when a big problem appeared. On the onehand as technological projects, there was an important software dependency,in most of cases owned by a single company. We had to spend a great sum topay for the licences for each of the machines.

On the other hand, a more important aspect, the educational system hadintroduced and installed 80,000 machines which needed operating systems,but also productivity software to work with.

Jose A. Diaz176

The large amount we had to spend ‘bit everybody’s eye’ and obviouslythe license costs were almost unreachable, particularly if we take periodicallicense updating of products into account. So, an alternative solution wasneeded. Instead of proprietary software the only possibility was FreeSoftware.

We had being using Free Software already in server environments withexcellent results. But we had not tested a Free Software solution for endusers lacking computing knowledge. Our main need was a desktop solutionbased of Free Software and oriented to users with office automationrequirements.

In this sense, about November 2001 we got in touch with the companyÁndago. They had experience in implementation of Free Software in desktopmachines in the Ministry of Public Service. Once the authorities of theRegional Ministry gave their approval, they started to develop the firstversion of GNU/LinEx.

4.1 Be Legal, Copy LinEx

This was the slogan for the GNU/LinEx launch on March 2002. Itmakes reference to the advantages of using Free Software, and thepossibility of redistributing the software and code with full freedom. LinExfirst version was based on the Debian Potato distribution and includedGNOME as a graphical environment. To be honest, the version had lots oflimitations, but it was a starting point.

A couple of months later the first advantages of Free Software wereproved. Two Secondary teachers had developed a new version of LinExbased on the first one developed by Ándago, with improvements in allaspects. These teachers were included in the GNU/LinEx technical staff,which depends on the Education, Science and Technology RegionalMinistry. In September 2002 the GNU/LinEx 3.0 Woody version waspresented in SIMO. It was based on Debian Woody and included GNOME1.4 as a graphical interface.

4.2 What is GNU/LinEx?

Technically speaking, GNU/LinEx is a Free Software distribution basedon Debian GNU/Linux. It includes a set of programs and a graphicalinterface, GNOME, oriented to non-technical end-users. Debian is adistribution created and developed around the world by a large group ofvoluntary programmers, researchers, and especially teachers. Debian waschosen because, on the one hand, there are not trademarks associated with


this distribution and, on the other hand, because this initiative provides highquality standards to its software.

Nevertheless, the standard Debian distribution was not suitable for all ourneeds so the GNU/LinEx development team’s work consisted of adaptingDebian to the needs of the Government of Extremadura. The first task to beundertaken was selecting software to be included in the single CD-ROM thatGNU/LinEx was distributed on. Out of almost 9000 software packagescompounding Debian, 800 have been selected. These are the packagesincluded in the GNU/LinEx Distribution. The next task was the developmentof a graphic installer to make the installing process as easy as possible toavoid inexperienced user’s intervention. Finally, new icons have been addedto the desktop. These icons make reference to the cultural background ofExtremadura: for example, Espronceda is a word processor, Zurbarán is agraphic design tool, Guadalupe is an email program.

Once we did this we gained an easy-to-install product with a variety ofproductivity software able to cope with almost every need of an office or aneducational system user.

Today, the main technical features of GNU/LinEx, version 3.0r1+g2.2,are as follows:

Linux Kernel 2.4.20Graphical Interface GNOME 2.2A set of GNU free applications:

(Semi) automatic graphic installerWord processorsSpreadsheetPresentationsAccessoriesWeb browserEmail programInstant messengerDomestic financial managementImage editorVNCand much more...

4.3 GNU/LinEx on the Net: www.linex.org

Running in parallel to GNU/LinEx presentation was the www.linex.orgportal. Information on the project is collected here and in this web site youcan download GNU/LinEx from different servers, and obtain technicalsupport for users’ frequently asked questions. You can also access theGNU/LinEx documentation, manuals and tutorials.

178 Jose A. Diaz

A Technical Support Service will be accessible through the web portalvery soon. Users will be able to ask questions which would be answeredthrough the web site, as well as via their emails.

5 GNU/LINEX IS A COLLECTIVE PROJECT

When the Regional Government started off the project of working withFree Software in the Public System, GNU/LinEx became vey well known onthe net. From this time the Government decided to adopt Free Software in adecisive way. Certainly regarding the educational environment, Extremadurais a world pioneer in installing a free operating system in classrooms. TheGNU/LinEx project has appeared on the front page of national andinternational newspapers such as the Washington Post or the InternationalHerald Tribune. It is of interest to several Governments and to national andinternational organizations that have declared their intention of cooperatingwith the development of this initiative.

The first collaboration for the development of Free Software was aProtocol signed by the Regional Governments of Extremadura andAndalusia in March 2003. According to the Protocol, Andalusia would useExtremadura’s advances to develop their own distribution, calledGNU/Guadalinex, to be launched in September 2003. To produce theprotocol, Andalusia and Extremadura have joined a shared technical team tocoordinate and share advances in both Autonomous Communities.

Beyond the Spanish frontiers, there are lots of cooperative agreementswith the Government of Brasil, as well as contacts with Argentina, Colombiaand Peru.

The GNU/LinEx project is not only supported by Governments, but alsoby user and business associations: GULEX or SINUH, ExtremaduraGNU/LinEx user associations, or Hispalinux, the Spanish user association.

The business role in this project is a most relevant one. From the verybeginning, we observed the use of Free Software in a local enterpriseenvironment as one of the main advantages, especially for the alreadylimited technological sector. In this respect one of the results is developmentof tools oriented to SME financial management, accounting, payslips, etc.

Other companies, such as OKI, contacted the GNU/LinEx project. Theyhave contributed by the development of their printer software installers forGNU/LinEx. ACER has included GNU/LinEx as pre-installed software intheir laptops. Lambdaux Software contributes interchanging technologiesbetween GNU/LinEx and Lux, the pre-installed distribution in AIRIS laptopmodels. Summing up, big companies pay attention to the important base ofusers of Free Software as a business opportunity.


6 FREE SOFTWARE FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE

In Extremadura, our experience in using and distributing GNU/LinExbrings us to several conclusions about the introduction of Free Software inthe Public Service, and there are more pros than cons:

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

Public funds management. The Public Services has a duty tomanage the citizens’ money to obtain the maximum benefit foreverybody. Investing in Free Software, the Public Service Systemgives society back the profits in font code appearance. This is away to invest in local R&D because the Public Service is using theservices of software companies in the region. As the font code isopen the application costs are more economical.GPL vs. Proprietary License. When buying proprietary softwarelicenses, the Public Service System depends on the businesspolicies of a single supplier. These could change at any moment.But GPL licenses make independence from suppliers possible, sothat the Public Service could negotiate and make a choice of thebest service.Third party software licenses are not compulsory. If the PublicService System uses proprietary software to communicate withcitizens, citizens are obliged to use proprietary software tocommunicate with the Public Service. But if Free Software is usedthe citizens have an option to chose.The Public Service has also a responsibility as a big consumer. If ittakes action it could support technological sectors based on FreeSoftware.Summing up, Free Software promotes positive attitudes likeknowledge sharing and network cooperation. It is a new, profitablebusiness model based on services related to software. This givesregions like Extremadura the opportunity to be at the same level asother regions in the world.

In light of these conclusions, the question to be answered is: Why do wehave to rent proprietary software if we have a choice for Free Software?


Basic Architecture for ICT Integration in theCanary Educational System

Pedro Baquero, Alfredo Santana, Ignacio Zubiria and Manuel PrietoConsejería de Educación, Cultura y Deportes. Gobierno de Canarias

Abstract: This article describes a global solution that covers the ICT infrastructurenecessities of the educational community. The focus has started from theprinciple that the school has autonomy in the development of its educationalproject. And, at the same time, there are networks of people and schools thatbelong to a corporation system. The global solution consists of a basictechnological architecture composed of three evolutionary projects (theIndividualized Networks of the Schools, the Integrated Broadband Networkand the Management System). The strategic bases for the design have beenthat the basic necessities of the educational community and the deployment ofICT infrastructure should be synchronized with the objectives for transformingthe educational system. This study has been framed inside MEDUSA project.This project is an initiative of the Government of the Canary Islands (Spain) toextend the ICT use in the educational system.

Key words: ICT infrastructure, schools, educational system, corporate networks.

1 INTRODUCTION

In the last years a quick incorporation of ICT (Information andCommunication Technologies) to the educational system has taken place. Inthis article the design of a global basic architecture for integrating ICT in thenon university educational system is described. The strategic bases for thedesign have been that the basic necessities of the educational community andthe deployment of ICT infrastructure should be synchronized with theobjectives for transforming the educational system. Thereby, in the global

182 Pedro Baquero, Alfredo Santana, Ignacio Zubiria, Manuel Prieto

design, different parts of ICT infrastructure have been integrated togetherwith processes that eliminate obstacles for ICT integration in education. Asreported in Pelgrum (2001) obstacles are not only infrastructural. In hisstudy 38 obstacles were reported. The top 10 obstacles consisted of amixture of material and non material conditions. The material conditionswere insufficient numbers of computer equipment and of Internet accesses.As non-material conditions were a lack of skill of teachers and lack ofsupervisory and technical staff. While the material conditions are fulfilledwith the deployment of ICT infrastructure, the non-material conditionsrequire the ‘deployment’ of human resources, services and managementprocesses. Therefore, infrastructure, services, human resources andmanagement processes have been included in the technological architecture.The result has been a basic technological architecture composed of threeevolutionary projects: the Individualized Networks of the Schools, theIntegrated Broadband Network and the Management System. From acommon strategy, each one of these projects has its own evolutionarystrategy. This basic technological architecture has been designed consideringthat at the same time we are planning, designing, building, using andoperating. This study has been framed inside the MEDUSA project. Thisproject is an initiative of the Government of the Canary Islands to extendICT use in the educational system.

Section 2 summarizes where the MEDUSA project is framed and what itsobjectives are. Section 3 describes bases for the strategic design of the basictechnological architecture. Section 4, 5 and 6 describe respectively theIndividualized Networks of Schools, the Integrated Broadband Network andthe Management System. Finally in section 5 is the conclusion of this work.

2 THE MEDUSA PROJECT

Canary Islands is a region of Spain formed by seven islands. It is locatedin the Atlantic Ocean, 1,250 km from Europe and 210 km from the Africancoast. It has a population of 1,694,477 inhabitants, 40% of themconcentrated in the metropolitan zones of the two main islands. The territoryis strongly fragmented due to its insularity and geography (ISTAC, 2003).The non-university educational system (Cabrera & Afonso, 2002; ISTAC,2003; CECD, 2003) is formed by 850 administrative workers, 301,622pupils, 19,660 teachers and 1,264 schools. At the beginning of year 2001 thepenetration was 23.6 students per computer with a significant number ofobsolete computers. On the other hand, available computer material inschools was used to cover derived necessities of ICT conception as a


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curricular subject, ICT not being approached as a didactic instrument indifferent areas and curricular subjects. Schools did not have a datainfrastructure that facilitated installation of ICT equipment, In year 2000 thenumber of schools with Internet access was about 24%, and only 2.2% had aWEB site. On the other hand, while there were some teachers with positiveICT attitudes, there were other teachers who had resistances of differentintensity toward ICT use.

The Canary Islands educational system is framed inside the Spanisheducational system (Cabrera & Afonso, 2002; CIDE, 2002) characterized bya decentralized model of administration that distributes the responsibilitiesmainly among National Government, Regional Governments and theeducational centres. National Government has exclusively reserved theexercise of responsibilities that safeguard the homogeneity and substantialunity of the educational system. Regional Government deals with, amongother duties, the administrative ownership in their territory, administration ofpersonal, orientation and attention to the pupil, helps and grants, etc.Regulations have been establishing the principle of autonomy of schools.They have capacity for decision-making in curricular aspects. Educationalcentres or schools should elaborate three different documents where theirpedagogic and curricular organization is reflected: the educational project,the curricular project and the didactic programming. It is therefore at theschool where the initiative is focused on including ICT for support for theeducational project. Regional Governments will be able to motivate and tosupport this type of initiative.

At the present time the Government of the Canary Islands, through theDepartment of Education, Culture and Sports, is developing the MEDUSAproject (CECD, 2003), which is a specific ICT project for non-universityeducation. It is basically conceived as an integral programme where all theeducational elements are identified. This project is bounded to theeducational administration and the public schools of Canary Islands. Asshown in table 1, it is a project with very wide objectives. This project isframed inside CANARIAS DIGITAL programme (GC, 2003) in accordancewith the strategic policy for facilitating the incorporation of the CanaryIslands to the Information Society. The MEDUSA project is being developedin two Phases: Phase I (2001-2004) and Phase II (2004-2006). At the end ofPhase II all schools will have Internet connection and a WEB site and therewill be a ratio of less than 12 pupils per computer. It is mainly funded by theEuropean Commission, through FEDER (Fonds Européen deDéveloppement Régional) and FSE (Fonds Social Européen) programmes.At the present time THE MEDUSA project is at the beginning of Phase IIand it is at a level which allows its evaluation.


3 OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

The ultimate and general aim of ‘Proyecto MEDUSA’ is to integrate ICTin educational non-university environments in the Canaries in an effectiveway. This integration should lead us to qualified teachers and students in ashort/middle-term period of time, so that they are used to logical and criticaluse of tools and technological resources, and that will permit new ways ofteaching and learning, and that will also help to establish new ways ofcommunication and contribution with other educational agents.

The immediate pursued benefits are, among others, to generalize accessto information and contents in the Internet, to create flexible and moreinteresting ways of teacher training, to improve the administrative andacademic management of schools, to facilitate the publication and exchange


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of experiences, and the creation of virtual communities for the differenteducational agents, apart from creating communication infrastructures tobear the Project. In the middle-term the effects should correspond with thecapacity of citizens to continually learn, and to adapt themselves to the newwork situations and relationships born from the evolution of the technology.

3.1 Strategic Focal Points of the Project

A project of this dimension requires a set of actions that become the basicpillars for a correct execution of it, and these actions are carried out in acoordinated and complementary way. That is why Departments and/orGeneral Management take part and collaborate in any of the areas of actionof the Project (communications, infrastructure, equipment, teacher training,schools management, and so on). This contribution is coordinated by themanagement and executive team of the Project.

The first action initiated in the project is the creation of infrastructuresand equipment in the Management Department of the Project, in the CentralServices of the Department of Education, in the ‘Teachers Centres’ and inschools. This is the most difficult process, and it permits us to arrange andenable all those logical and physical elements that will provide thetechnological basis for the Project to revolve.

The second basic pillar consists of training teachers, students and otheragents involved in the execution of the Project. Users training is conceivedas functional, practical and adapted to the contexts, to the materials andenvironment in which the Project develops.

Training contents and offers are flexible. They are collected in an annualTraining Plan, provided with a modular structure to facilitate teachers inmaking up their training itinerary. This Plan is continually updated andimproved. The course contents are organized in several ‘training lines’which are slightly differentiated. Thus a first line is defined as ‘instrumentaltraining’. Its objective is to qualify teachers and other educational agents sothat they are able to use equipment and generic applications up to anacceptable level of safety. A second line, also instrumental, intends toprovide certain users with more intense training upon equipment and specificbasic applications related to services and better use of Network resources.

A second training guidance is that of ‘Use and exploitation ofAdministrative and Academic Management Applications’, to take advantageof the functionalities of these applications, so that users are able tomodernize and improve schools management and school libraries.

The third line of formation is oriented to ‘ICT integration in thesyllabus’. It intends to promote an open attitude, among teachers, toward the


S.I. and let them know general or specific applications so that they can usethem in their teaching activities. A second more advanced training level willenable teachers to feel at ease in certain environments and produce their ownapplications.

‘Technologies as a curricular subject’ is another orientation in teachertraining. It has to do with the need to undertake contents related toTechnology in Secondary Education, data processing and other specificsubjects included in specialized teaching.

Keeping in mind the basis on which the Project develops, trainingthrough the Internet is prompted. This kind of training is tremendouslyimportant and useful in a geographically dispersed area such as the Canaries.The use of training through the Internet will be shared with presentialtraining, and a mixture of both. In general, any training activity will bebacked up with tools ready to be used in the Internet, and that will provideusers with different services.

The provision of contents is another strategic focal point of the Project.The shortage of educational and specific contents related to ITC, or borne bythem, has not favoured the approach to ICT in schools, as well as integrationand use of ICT as instrumental support in the different subjects. The policyof content provision is undertaken in different ways. On one hand, apercentage of ICT content will be released via publishers; another set ofcontent will be self-developed, adapting them to context or participating insimilar national or European projects. On the other hand, available contentlocated in the Internet, which is conveniently catalogued and classified, canbe also used.

In this sense, the promotion and support of innovation and educationalresearch projects will be another source of provision, with the added valuethat these materials are already contextualized in specific classroomsituations, so that the level of motivation is very high, because they will besuggested by teachers that work with them.

‘Proyecto MEDUSA’ is carried out and fulfilled when launchingeducational activities in the classrooms, involving students in thoseactivities. Students are the main recipients of the Project; and it is in theenvironments created in schools, in the classrooms and in the network,where the Project acquires its true dimension. The progressive transfer of theuse of the technological elements to the classrooms is consideredfundamental. The ultimate aim is the natural media integration in theclassrooms for teaching purposes.

In order to encourage and support the deployment of the Project on apersonal level, there is a team of advisers (teachers specialized in the use oftechnologies in the classroom and educational levels) who advice with thesupport and collaboration of the ‘teachers centres’.


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4 TECHNOLOGICAL BASES FOR THE STRATEGICDESIGN

Our vision has started from the school autonomy in the development ofits educational project. Efforts should concentrate on the teaching-learningprocess using ICT. And, at the same time, there are people and schoolnetworks that belong to a corporate system. The ideal technological solutionshould give answers to two environments: the school and the corporateenvironment. The methodology has started locating the characteristics thatshould complete the necessities of these environments. At the same time thesolution should go beyond endowing schools with an ICT globalinfrastructure and that should be framed inside all the objectives of theMEDUSA project eliminating obstacles for ICT integration (Pelgrum, 2001).Thus, to execute this technological solution, a series of characteristics hasalso been identified and they should complete the development of theproject. The educational system has a series of particularities that make it aunique environment with its own characteristics and differences with respectto other organizations:

There exist a larger number of schools with, in general, not very reliablecommunications lines.

There exists great diversity of software. They are mainly educationalapplications instead of the productivity software (e.g., office applications)used in most of other organizations.

The ICT applications are continually being installed and uninstalled. Ifthere does not exist an adequate management, the computer environmentsbecome unstable.

The educational community has important levels of autonomy. Theirinitiative and favourable attitudes can lead to an intensive ICT use.Therefore solutions based on decentralized environments have been

considered. Solutions based on centralized systems like ASP (ApplicationService Providers) have been discarded mainly because they need robustcommunications and standard applications (Harney, 2002).

At the beginning of the year 2001 we saw that there were low levels ofICT infrastructure in the Canary Islands educational system. There has beena considerable effort to endow all schools with equipment and infrastructure.As seen above, schools are framed inside a system that provides themautonomy with respect to the development of their educational project, theICT educational project would be included inside. On the other hand, it is atthe school where the direct contact with the pupil takes place and, therefore,where the teacher can apply and use ICT inside his particular strategy ofworking and teaching.


Schools and the administrative departments are all members of theeducational system. The corporate network should facilitate the creation ofknowledge networks. This network should favour the exchange of data andexperiences and the improvement of corporate administrative processes.Also, it should expand access to the Internet for all schools. This networkshould be opened to incorporation of new services.

The technological solution should be fully integrated with the objectivesof the MEDUSA project. The rhythm of development will depend, apartfrom the available budget, on the technology and also on other factors suchas the market, the investment capacity of the operators and the servicesdemanded by the citizen and public administration.

An objective for the future is to create a basic technological architecturefor the educational system of the Canary Islands. It should be theinfrastructure that gives a global solution of connectivity and support to allICT applications and services. This basic technological architecture shouldhave the following parts:

A technological solution inside the school that is sufficiently uniform andat the same time completes the educational autonomy of the school, themobility inside the school, the flexibility and robustness characteristics.Given the great number of schools, it will be carried out by gradualdeployment. Each of these schools will be integrated in the educationalsystem through a corporate network.

The corporate technological solution should assure the integration ofservices and universality to the whole educational community. It will givea response to the necessities of broadband. Also, it will allow the mobilityof users outside their schools.

A technological and organizational solution that should be friendly withall type of users, especially the basic user, should be designed to supportintelligence approaches in administration and operation and shouldsupport characteristics of the development of a project.Following this model as reference, the final technological architecture

will contemplate each one of the identified parts. This architecture willevolve toward a global solution that will be materialized with thedevelopment of three clearly differentiated projects:

The Individualized Networks of the Schools.The Integrated Broadband Network.The Management System.

With these three projects all the characteristics would be aimed towardsnecessities of the school environments and the corporate environment. Theprevious technical projects become evolutionary projects when theyconverge on a global solution that is continuously evolving.


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These three evolutionary projects should be consistent with thetechnological trends and thereby fulfill the long term characteristic. As cleartrends we have the evolution of services toward IP technology (Goncalves &Niles, 1998), increase of broadband in access and incorporation of wirelessaccesses (Zamir, 2000). In the election of the technological solution thesethree trends has been considered.

5 INDIVIDUALIZED NETWORKS OF SCHOOLS

The deployment of ICT equipment and infrastructure for all schools hasbeen defined. Each school should be endowed with ICT infrastructure tocarry out its ICT educational project. There exist diverse types of schools inthe Canary educational system, although the most important are primary andsecondary schools. In a general way each school has an administrative staff,seminars or teachers’ rooms, an assembly hall, a library, classrooms andcomputer classroom. A standard technological solution has been designed toadapt each school to its ICT educational project. This standard solutionconsists in:

A local-area server. Its administration, including backup copies, is carriedout remotely and centralized from ICT Centre (as described in section6.2). The local-area server has the necessary services for educationalautonomy of the school. Teachers and administrative personnel have theirown accounts and their own directory where they can house all theirinformation.

A MEDUSA classroom with access to the educational network composedby about fifteen computers. The MEDUSA classroom has a standardconfiguration. The objective of this classroom is the support for teachingto all subjects. In general, these subjects do not have ICT curricularcontents. It is intended that the MEDUSA classroom should be a verystable and robust environment, in this way a very strict permission policyexists for the installation of applications. On the other hand, each schoolused to have a computer classroom for specific computer teaching. Insome cases these computer classrooms have also been endowed withequipment. Each school establishes its administration policy for computerclassrooms, so computer teachers can be as free as possible. Theseclassrooms are integrated inside the ICT infrastructure of the school andare isolated through a router to avoid conflicts with the rest of thenetwork.

Access to the corporate network is given for administrative services,library and seminars. In general, the corporate applications work in a


WEB architecture. Each seminar is endowed with a minimum of acomputer with access to the corporate resources of the the Government ofthe Canary Islands. Also, the library is endowed with a computer andwith the access to the corporate application of bibliographical resources.

Access to the educational network is given to all the ‘classroom corners’.In general, the ‘classroom corner’ is located next to the teacher’s tableand blackboard. Each classroom is endowed with one or two doublenetwork points placed in the ‘classroom corner’.

The MEDUSA classroom and computer classrooms are wired to giveservice to all computers. Each classroom is endowed with two or fournetwork points placed in the ‘classroom corners’. Each room (library,seminars, assembly hall, administration and address) is endowed with aminimum of two network points. The whole school is endowed withstructured cabling together with electrical infrastructure. Structuredcabling category 5/clase E has been used. The local-area network is FastEthernet (100 Mbps) implanted with switches. It is tried to endow with atleast a double point of network to all the dependences. This wayguarantees that the school has a high flexible infrastructure that allowsmobility among the different classrooms and rooms can evolve towardbigger speeds than 100 Mbps (Saunders, 1996) and is easily manageablethrough changing remotely configurations of switches.Therefore, a uniform solution has been created in all the schools. The

experience has allowed checking that this solution is adjusted to all ICTeducational projects of the schools. The aspects that vary from one school toanother are the number of computers and peripherals. The characteristics ofthe computers also varies due to market improvements that take place duringthe lifetime of deployment. A complete inventory control is acquiredremotely through using intelligent agents in each computer. It facilitates theadministration of the equipment. Permission policies have been created tohave robust environments. Thus, the teachers can not directly administer andinstall applications in computers, in servers and in MEDUSA classrooms.Anyway, each school can install its own educational applications for which amanagement model has been created that permits more autonomy to theschool. Different user profiles have been defined: the basic, the advancedand the administrator user. All the pupils and most of the teachers are basicusers. Only the advanced and administration users can install applications inMEDUSA classrooms in function of the aggressiveness level of theinstallation with the operating systems.

Endowment with computers and peripherals. Schools are endowed withcomputer equipment for general use. This equipment is usually made upof a limited number of computers, peripherals (printers, scanner, etc), anotebook computer and a projector.


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Local solutions in computers are based on Microsoft Window XP. Theoperating system of servers is Microsoft Window Server 2000. At thepresent time, individualize accounts are only created for administrative andeducational personnel of schools. Also, a reduced number of standard workgroups can be created: one for teachers, one for administration and one forpupils. In few schools there exist collectives of teachers that request biggerlevels of autonomy in the creation of services and groups. In general, thesecollectives coincide with teachers that have bigger capacities for ICTadministration. Thereby, in Phase II the design has been improved withservices that allow creating services more personalized at the schools.Solutions based on the new characteristics of Microsoft Window 2003 andWindow Server 2003 with Active Directory 2.0 will be implemented. Theywill allow creating more flexibly different groups. Also, a better versatilecreation of accounts will allow individualized accounts for pupils and alarger number of working groups.

The possibility of transparently changing the position of users andequipment is required. Two mobility profiles exist: the ‘mobile’ and the‘nomadic’. Although both allow mobility of users with transfer ofcommunications of an access point to other, their mobility profile isdifferent. The users of mobile networks we called ‘mobiles’: that is, theycommunicate while they are in movement. The users called ‘nomadic’, theymove, stop and then communicate. The ‘mobile’ concept still has not beendeveloped completely through such wireless technologies as WI-FI (IEEE802.11 standards) (Dubendorf, 2003). These solutions have only been usedto save distance. It is foreseen in Phase II to implant WI-FI areas inclassrooms. The mobility characteristic that has been developed is the‘nomadic’ using fixed accesses. This is linked with the experience that someteachers have acquired using notebooks and projectors. These teachersdemand a bigger number of them for its use in ‘classroom corners’. Thisdemand of more equipment takes place several months after the school hasbeen endowed with them. In Phase II a concrete action enlarging the supplyof notebooks and projectors in schools is foreseen.

6 INTEGRATED BROADBAND NETWORK

The Integrated Broadband Network (IBN) connects all schools of theMEDUSA project. These schools are constituted mainly by head offices andschools. The IBN allows connectivity among them, with the corporateservices of the Government of the Canary Islands and with the Internet.Educational personnel and office workers have access to the services of the


Government of the Canary Islands. All the users are connected to theexterior through a unique access to the Internet. The essential servers of thearchitecture are located in head offices from where all information arrivesfor the whole educational community (figure 1). The basic aspects that havebeen developed in the IBN are IP network, broadband access network toschools, mobility and security.

Figure 1. Integrated Broadband Network Architecture

6.1 IP Network

The IBN architecture is based on the use of IP protocol in the backboneand broadband technologies in accesses of schools. This solution fulfils theintegrate characteristic. All the data services of the schools are integratedand come out through the same access using the IP protocol. At the presenttime voice services have not been included in this network. Future strategieswill integrate voice using IP protocol. This way makes sure of the evolutionof this network toward the IP scenario, where VoIP will be able to beincorporated in the future (Zamir, 2000).


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6.2 Broadband Access Network

Schools have been endowed with broadband accesses. Currently, of thetotal of schools, 1,264, about 32% of them have access to the Internetthrough the IBN. 87% have ADSL accesses and the rest have ISDNaccesses. At the moment, 13% of the 1,264 schools do not have either ADSLor ISDN coverage, they are in most of the cases schools located in ruralareas. In the Canary Islands other available broadband technologies exist(e.g., cable modem and LMDS), although at the moment the operators thatoffer these technologies only have coverage in metropolitan areas. Thereby,in Phase II access by satellite has been considered as a better alternative forrural areas. The use in each access is continually monitored and it allows usto adapt the broadband necessities of each school.

ADSL access network architecture is based on points of interconnection(PoI) with the telecommunications operator. From each PoI ADSL,connections are established to each school. The capacity of each PoI issubscribed to a telecommunications operator. This solution allows havingADSL access that guarantees upstream and downstream speeds superiors tothose that the telecommunications operators offer directly to their customers(Maxwell, 1999). Each PoI gives service to a zone of the Canary Islands,although ADSL coverage is not total in each area. In the future, superiordemands of 2 Mbps could be carried out with other technologies like VDSL(Very high speed Digital Subscriber Line) access or increasing the numberof ADSL access (e.g., 2xADSL) in each school. It is intended at the end ofyear 2006 that all the schools will have broadband accesses through the IBN.

6.3 Mobility

Users can be connected from any internal point to the network or fromany external one (e.g., their home) conserving all functionalities as if theywere in their habitual working place. Also relevant are concepts of ‘mobile’and ‘nomadic’ user. The mobility concept that has been developed in theIBN is ‘nomadic’. At present the IBN does not target the ‘mobile’ user. Notall users have the same necessities. Pupils, teachers and administrationpersonal require two access points: one external to the network, in generaltheir home, and the other internal, their school. This way, solutions can beimplemented so that teachers and pupils can work or learn from their home.In these cases access can be made from outside. In some cases solutionshave been developed based on VPN (Virtual Private Network) (Fowler,1999) for pupils with special needs.


Another group of users also require mobility among schools. In this lastcase mobility is guaranteed through active directory policies where each userprofile is replied in all the local-area servers of each school. The replica thatis carried out is incremental and scheduled nocturnally with the purpose ofnot saturating access. At present the active directory is implemented withMicrosoft Windows Server 2000 with Active Directory 1.0. These currentactive directory policies permit teachers move from one school to another, sothey can be connected to the other school network. First they are registeredwith their user names, then they will be able to carry out all the functionsthat they have enabled inside the IBN. These policies also permit creation ofcollaborative working groups among teachers of different schools. In PhaseII it is intended to enlarge this function for creation of collaborative workinggroups to pupils. It is not intended in Phase II to develop the widest mobilityconcept: the data ‘mobile’ user. At the moment only the mobile telephonyservice is embraced through corporate telephony services.

6.4 Security

Two logical networks have been created inside the IBN: a network that itis called the educational network and another called the corporate network.The objective is to avoid pupil access to the Government of the CanaryIslands corporate network. This way unwanted access by pupils to thecorporate services is avoided. In Phase II the educational network will comeout to the Internet through a content filter. Each school will define, inside itsautonomy, the contents that are not accessible for its pupils. The corporatenetwork gives access to the corporate services of The Government of theCanary Islands. Permission policy has been implemented through the activedirectory profiles that allow protection of users and equipment. Internetaccess is always carried out through a firewall located in central services ofthe Government of the Canary Islands. Security is reinforced with the ICTCentre which maintains centralized control.

7 MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

The Management System guarantees a unique vision of THE MEDUSAproject and the fact that the implementation of ICT infrastructure fulfils itsobjectives. Inside the Management System, it is important to includemethodologies of ICT management (Boar, 1993; Davis & Yen, 1999). It alsoguarantees the availability and the quality of service (QoS) of all ICTservices. One of its main missions is to reinforce the educational autonomyand friendly characteristics of the schools and security characteristics of the


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corporate environment. The Management System carries out a centralizedcontrol of the schools that are geographically very disperse. It is alsoimportant to give schools autonomy within a philosophy of high protectionfor the equipment, so that risks of voluntary or accidental manipulations willbe diminished. Service philosophy is based on facilitating access of any userregardless of their computer literacy. The Management System is supportedby the MEDUSA Office and ICT Centre.

7.1 MEDUSA Office

MEDUSA Office manages and has a unique vision of the entire THEMEDUSA project. It achieves different functions which emphasize thefollowing (figure 2): executive, transformational, decentralizing andeducational functions.

Figure 2. MEDUSA Office FunctionsThe mission of the executive function is to have a unique vision and to

fulfill the objectives of the MEDUSA project. It manages and plans theMEDUSA project. In a project of these characteristics success will not onlydepend on good management of all technical tasks, but also to its capacity ofadjusting to new situations. When dealing with a project of long duration,management of risks and opportunities is also carried out.


The mission of the transformational function is to manage the change andto eliminate the resistances of all type of people in the educational system. Itfulfils the transformation characteristics. Change management has identifiedthree types of functions: leadership, commitment and knowledge (Huber &Glick, 1993). These functions have been developed in the MEDUSA projectthrough a complete management method that integrates the deployment ofthe infrastructures in schools with schemes of presentations, visits andcourses. The experience in the MEDUSA project has evidenced that changemanagement is indissolubly together with installation of ICT infrastructure.When the deployment of the technological architecture goes with actions ofchange management a larger increment of the demand of ICT formative andmore personalized ICT solutions or services have taken place. This has led toredefine the formative planning and to develop in Phase II a service with amore individualized support from MEDUSA office.

The mission of the decentralizing function is to facilitate autonomy of theschool in execution of its educational project. It reinforces the educationalautonomy. Schools that want more autonomy in administration of their ICTresources and whose teachers have advanced knowledge can have delegateda great part of the work of computer system administration. As a result,when a school acquires bigger abilities in the administration of computersystems, a procedure has been enabled so that the school can receive biggertechnical powers. The educational function propitiates the popularization,extension and support to a wide group of educational applications. Thisfunction favours the use of corporate applications with independence thateach school can select other different ones.

7.2 ICT Centre

ICT Centre manages and administers the whole ICT infrastructure, aswell as a level of attention and service to all users. ICT Centre is the mosttechnical level in the Management System. All servers and computers of theschools can be managed and administrated from ICT Centre. Computerenvironments of the schools are monitored so that actions to prevent thesystems becoming unstable or saturated can be carried out.

From this centre all users are assisted. ICT Centre has been endowedwith an organizational structure and technological tools to carry out thecentralized administration of ICT resources. ICT Centre gives support to thesystems and users of the Individualized Schools Networks and those of theIBN. It has a group of tools and functions to provide a wide range of services(figure 3). ICT Centre provides support to the users of all the schools andadministrative centres. All kind of inquires, problems, petitions or mishaps


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are managed until their complete resolution. It is constituted as a uniquepoint of direct attention available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365days a year. In an environment, where schools are dispersed, monitoring ofall their components is absolutely necessary as well as remote assistance,with the purpose of avoiding long time waiting for answers. Remote controlis made through the distribution of agents to all computers and servers.

Figure 3. Tools and functions of ICT Centre

ICT Centre also gives quick answers to new necessities or upgrades ofeducational applications, office applications and operating systems. Softwaredistribution services allow the centralized definition of software packagesand centralized planning and pursuing of its distribution. Personalizeddistribution is necessary for groups of computers, servers, users or locations.ICT Centre performs quality control prior to software distribution in schools.

An improvement in levels of QoS has occurred during Phase I. This hasled to upgrade ICT Centre. The demand of more QoS has been increasing fortwo reasons: first, the educational community makes bigger use of thecentral services and, second, the demand for quicker answers to user inquireshas increased. In Phase II ICT Centre is going to be improved with specialattention to the improvement of the software distribution service.

8 CONCLUSION

The basic technological architecture has been designed starting fromdefinition of the characteristics that should complete ICT integration withthe educational system. This architecture has been materialized in threeclearly differentiated evolutionary projects: The Individualized Networks ofthe Schools, Integrated Broadband Network and Management System. Withthese three evolutionary projects all the characteristics would be fulfillingthe basic ICT necessities of schools and the corporate environment.


At the present time, the current solution completes a great part of thecharacteristics of the environment of the school and corporate environment.Nevertheless, the demand of the educational community makes stillnecessary to keep on improving the service. Thus, in Phase II of THEMEDUSA project the mobility concept inside the school will be improvedthrough the incorporation of wireless technologies. Currently, it is not beingconsidered high-priority to enlarge the mobility concept to the ‘mobile’ usersor to improve the integration concept with the incorporation of VoIP.

Finally, it is necessary to increase levels of school autonomy. This will becarried out in Phase II through two actions: competences transferring ofManagement System to schools and developing other functionalities thatallow accounts creation for pupils and a bigger flexibility in creation of workgroups. In Phase II levels of QoS will be increased to improve characteristicsof friendliness and intelligence through upgrading ICT Centre.

9 REFERENCES

Boar, B.H. (1993). The Art of Strategic Planning for Information Technology. John Wiley.Cabrera, J. M. & Afonso, J. M (2002). El sistema educativo en Canarias. Una perspectiva

socioeconómica. Consejo Económico y Social, http://www.cescanarias.org/CECD, (2003). Consejería de Educación, Cultura y Deportes del Gobierno de Canarias.

http://www.educa.rcanaria.es/CIDE (Centro de Investigación y Documentación Educativa). (2002). Spanish Education

System. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte: Dirección General de Educación,Formación Profesional e Innovación Educa. www.mec.es/cide/publicaciones/pub_cide.htm

Davis, W. & Yen, D. (1999). The Information System Consultant‘s Handbook: Systems,Analysis and Design. CRC Press LLC.

Dubendorf, V. A. (2003). Wireless Data Technologies. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.Fowler, D. (1999). Virtual private networks. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.GC (Gobierno de Canarias). (2003). Plan para el desarrollo de la Sociedad de la Información

de Canarias (PDSIC). http://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/dgtsi/pdsic.pdfGoncalves, M. & Niles, K. (1998). IPv6 Networks. McGraw-Hill.Harney, J. (2002). Application Service Providers (ASPs): A Manager’s Guide. Ad. Wesley.Huber, G.P. & Click W.H., (1993). Organizational Change and Redesign. Ideas and Insights

for Improving Performance. Oxford University Press.ISTAC, (2003). Institute Canario de Estadística. http://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/istac/Maxwell, K. (1999). Residencial Broadband. Wiley.Pelgrum, W. J. (2001). Obstacles to the integration of ICT in education: results from a

worldwide educational assessment. Computer & Education, 37 (2), 163-178.Saunders, S. (1996). The McGraw-Hill High-Speed LANs Handbook. McGraw-Hill.Wisely, D., Eardley, P. & Burness, L. (2002). IP for 3G—Networking Technologies for

Mobile Communications. John Wiley & Sons.Zamir, S. (Ed.) (2000). Handbook of Emerging Communications Technologies: The Next

Decade. CRC Press LLC.

To Adopt or Not to Adopt Computer-Based SchoolManagement Systems?An ITEM Research Agenda

Arthur TatnallGraduate School of Business, Victoria University, [email protected]

Abstract: While information systems are used in educational management by manyschools in many countries, some schools in some countries use them moreeffectively than others. This paper questions the reasons for this. Theintroduction of new computer-based educational management systems inschools should be thought of in terms of innovation. Although a large amountof research has been done on the process of technological innovation some ofit is not well grounded in innovation theory, and not much ITEM researchrelates to this topic. Of the ITEM research that does investigation innovationmost is concerned with the management of change in schools and how to bestimplement these systems, rather than a consideration of why some schoolschoose to adopt some or all aspects of an ITEM system while others choosenot to adopt. This paper outlines two theories of technological innovation andadvocates the advantages of the theory of innovation translation ininvestigations in this area.

Key words: Innovation, innovation diffusion, innovation translation, technology adoption,centralised/ decentralised education systems, ITEM research.

1 INTRODUCTION

A large number of schools in many countries around the world makegood use of information systems to assist them in aspects of theireducational management. Some, however, make better use of thistechnology than others. One simplistic explanation of this has to do with thequality of the software used. Proponents of the educational management

200 Arthur Tatnall

software used in a school system in one country may claim that they have agreater adoption rate and better use of information technology in educationalmanagement (ITEM) because their software is better than that used inanother school system in another country. By ‘better’ they may mean that itis easier to use, cheaper, has more features, or is better suited to the sort ofadministrative tasks schools perform. While it may well be true on one levelthat the quality of the educational management software available is animportant factor in the implementation and use of ITEM systems, I willargue that it is not the only factor and not even the most important factor.

In this paper I will contend that the use of information technology ineducational management in schools should be regarded in terms ofinnovation, and investigated through the lens of innovation theory. I willquestion the extent to which the popular theory of innovation diffusion(Rogers 1995) can be gainfully applied to researching the adoption of ITEMby schools around the world, and advocate instead the advantages of thealternative approach offered by innovation translation (Callon 1986; Latour1986; Law 1991; Latour 1996) informed by actor-network theory.

2 INNOVATION

The dictionary defines innovation as “the alteration of what isestablished; something newly introduced” (Oxford 1973) and “introducingnew things or methods”. The word ‘innovation’ is used synonymously with‘newness’ and ‘change’ (Dutch 1962), and an innovation can be described asan idea that is perceived to be new to a particular person or group of people(Rogers 1995). As the introduction or improvement of an information systemin an organisation necessarily involves change of some sort (Tatnall 2002;Tatnall and Lepa 2003), in this paper I will advocate that the introduction ofITEM systems into schools should be considered as an innovation, and thattheories of innovation should be given due consideration in any study of thesuccess, or otherwise, of this undertaking. The features and quality of themanagement software available to schools may well be one factor indetermining whether or not they will adopt ITEM systems but, as I willshow, innovation is a highly political process and many more factors alsoinfluence its success. All this, however, depends upon schools having somechoice in the matter.

I will digress here to distinguish between invention and innovation.Invention can be seen in the discovery of new ideas, while innovationinvolves putting these ideas into commercial or organisational practice(Maguire, Kazlauskas and Weir 1994). Invention does not necessarily invokeinnovation and it a fallacious to think that invention is necessary and

To Adopt or Not to Adopt School Management Systems 201

sufficient for innovation to occur. For a formal definition of innovation I willaccept that of Maquire et. al. (1994 :5): “Innovation is the application in anyorganisation of ideas new to it, whether they are embodied in products,processes, services, or in the systems of management and marketing throughwhich the organisation operates”.

3 DEGREE OF CHOICE SCHOOLS HAVE INADOPTING ITEM

The application of innovation theory to the adoption of a technologicalinnovation assumes that the potential adopter had some choice in whether ornot to make the adoption. In some highly centralised school systems this isnot the case and schools have no choice but to adopt (Tatnall and Pitman2003). Even in these situations, however, the school system itself had somechoice, and I will question the extent to which this can be investigatedthrough innovation theory. On the other hand, in more decentralised systemsthe decision of whether to adopt a particular management approach or tomake use of specific educational management software may be left up toindividual schools. There are also, of course, many situations in betweenthese extremes.

3.1 Centralised school systems that have adopted ITEM

In centralised school systems I will assume that the central educationauthority, whether it be national or regional, will have determined whether ornot schools should make use of computer-based educational managementsystems and have specified the particular software packages to be used. Ifthis central authority has decreed that a specific educational managementsystem should be used then it is likely that it will also require schools tosubmit financial and other reports in a format determined by this system.Taking this approach will effectively force schools to adopt and use thesystem, but to what degree? There is an old English saying to the effect that“you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink” (Wilson 1970),and it is almost impossible to force any organisation to make effective use ofa piece of software or specific management approach.

The notion of IT infusion (Linderoth 1997) can be used to characterisesituations where the full potential of an IT innovation is being used withbeneficial effects by an organisation. In studies of the use of informationsystems in business it is common to find an organisation that is making someuse of IT, but is not getting as much out of this use as they could becausethey have not taken the trouble to integrate it into their management

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structures and let it change the way they operate. In situations where schoolsare forced into the use of educational management systems an interestingresearch question involves the degree to which these systems are infused intothe schools’ management structures.

3.2 Decentralised school systems

In some cases central education authorities in decentralised schoolsystems may suggest, or recommend to schools the use of educationalmanagement software, while in other cases it may be silent on this matter.Mostly in educational systems of this type the choice to adopt of not to adoptITEM systems is left to the individual school (or school cluster). Thispresents the classic situation in which innovation theory can be applied toinvestigate adoption, by considering the factors and interactions in eachschool that led to adoption (Tatnall 2002).

4 THEORIES OF INNOVATION: INNOVATIONDIFFUSION

The dominant paradigm in innovation research is that of innovationdiffusion. In diffusion theory the existence of an innovation is seen to causeuncertainty in the minds of potential adopters (Berlyne 1962), implying alack of predictability and of information. Diffusion is considered to be aninformation exchange process amongst members of a communicating socialnetwork driven by the need to reduce uncertainty (Rogers 1995). Diffusiontheory contends that a technological innovation embodies information, andso its adoption acts to reduce uncertainty. The new ideas upon which aninnovation is based are communicated over time, through various types ofcommunication channels, among the members of a social system. Rogers(1995) argues that there are four main elements to innovation diffusion:

Characteristics of the innovation itself. Rogers argues that attributesand characteristics of the innovation itself are important in determiningthe manner of its diffusion and the rate of its adoption. He outlines fivecharacteristics of an innovation which, he argues, affect its diffusion:

Relative advantage. This is the degree to which an innovation isperceived as better than the idea it supersedes. Rogers contendsthat an innovation’s relative advantage is positively correlated withits rate of adoption.Compatibility – the degree to which an innovation is perceived bypotential adopters as being consistent with their existing values and


past experiences. Rogers claims that perceived compatibility of aninnovation assists adoption.Complexity – or the degree to which an innovation is perceived asdifficult to understand and use. Rogers claims that the morecomplex the innovation, the less likely it is to be quickly adopted.Trialability – the degree to which an innovation may be subjectedto limited experimentation. Rogers’ research suggests that if apotential adopter is able to ‘play’ with the innovation then adoptionis more likely.Observability. The more the results of an innovation are visible toothers, the more likely the innovation is to be adopted.

Nature of the communications channels. To reach a potential adopterthe innovation must diffuse through a communications channel andRogers shows that channels involving mass media are the most rapidmeans of spreading awareness, but interpersonal channels are generallymore effective in persuading someone to accept a new idea.The passage of time. Rogers argues that time is involved in three aspectsof innovation diffusion: the innovation-decision process, the degree ofinnovativeness, and an innovation’s rate of adoption. He outlines thefollowing sequential steps in the innovation-decision process: knowledge,persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation.The social system. Diffusion occurs within a social system in which thesocial structure constitutes a boundary. Rogers argues that the system’sstructure affects diffusion through the action of social norms, the rolestaken by opinion leaders and change agents, the types of innovationdecisions that are taken, and the social consequences of the innovation.

Innovation diffusion has had considerable success in describing howinnovations move, or diffuse, through large populations. It has, however notso often been used as successfully in investigating small scaleimplementations by single individuals or small organisations (Tatnall 2002).Also, there are occasions when diffusion does not occur at all despite theexcellence of the idea or the supposed quality of the innovation, and thediffusion model finds these instances difficult to explain.

5 THEORIES OF INNOVATION: INNOVATIONTRANSLATION

An alternative view of innovation is that of innovation translationproposed in actor-network theory (ANT). The core of this approach istranslation, which can be defined as: “... the means by which one entity givesa role to others.” (Singleton and Michael 1993 :229). While many

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approaches to research in technological areas treat the social and thetechnical in entirely different ways, ANT proposes instead a socio-technicalaccount in which neither social nor technical positions are privileged. Inactor-network theory an actor is a human or non-human entity that is able tomake its presence individually felt by the other actors. An actor can,however, in many ways also be thought of as a ‘black box’ (Callon 1987),the contents of which we can chose not to worry about. We can consider thisentity just as an actor, but when doing so it must be remembered that behindeach actor there hide other actors that it has, more of less effectively, drawntogether, or ‘black-boxed’(Callon 1987). When the time comes to open thelid of the black box and look inside, it will be seen to constitute a wholenetwork of other, perhaps complex, associations.

It is often the case that an organisation which is considering sometechnological innovation is interested in only some aspects of this innovationand not others (Tatnall 2002). In actor-network terms it needs to translate(Callon 1986) this piece of technology into a form where it can be adopted.This may mean choosing some elements of the technology and leaving outothers, resulting in what is finally adopted not being the innovation in itsoriginal form, but a translation of it into a form that is suitable for use by therecipient (Tatnall 2002). When considering the implementation of an ITEMsystem in a school, in actor-network terms the ITEM system needs tonegotiate with each individual school to determine how it could best beimplemented by them.

5.1 Problematisation, Interessement, Enrolment,Mobilisation

Callon (1986) outlines the process of translation as having four‘moments’ the first of which he calls problematisation, in which one or morekey actors attempts to define the nature of the problem and the roles of otheractors to fit the solution proposed. The problem is re-defined in terms ofsolutions offered by these actors who then attempt to establish themselves asan ‘obligatory passage point’ (Callon 1986) which must be negotiated as partof its solution. In implementing an ITEM system the problematisationproposed by its designer is that school administration is best performed withthe assistance of a computer. For the project to be successful its instigatorsmust convince the school to see the ITEM system as an obligatory passagepoint to good educational administration.

The second moment is called interessement and is a series of processesthat attempt to impose the identities and roles defined in the problematisationonto other actors. It means interesting and attracting an actor by comingbetween it and some other actor (Law 1986). In the case of the ITEM


system, schools need to be convinced that this technology is moreworthwhile and offers them better prospects of good administration than theapproaches they now use. It must convince them to stop using manualadministrative systems and instead use the ITEM system.

The third moment: enrolment then leads to the establishment of a stablenetwork of alliances. For enrolment to be successful however, it requiresmore than just one set of actors imposing their will on others; it also requiresthese others to yield (Singleton et al. 1993). It is not enough for thosepromoting the ITEM system to eloquently espouse its benefits, the schoolsmust also give up their old methods of administration. Finally, mobilisationoccurs as the proposed solution gains wider acceptance (McMaster, Vidgenand Wastell 1997) and an even larger network of absent entities is created(Grint and Woolgar 1997) through some actors acting as spokespersons forothers. The ITEM system can be judged to be truly successful when schoolprincipals are advocating its advantages to each other. When looked at in thisway the process of adopting, or choosing not to adopt some technologybegins to be seen in its true complexity, not just as a yes/no decision, but as acomplex set of negotiations between a number of human and non-humanactors.

ITEM INNOVATION RESEARCH QUESTIONS6

As Smith and Wild (2001) point out, a great deal of research has beendone on how technological innovation occurs. Fung (1997) notes that thereis more to ITEM innovation than hardware and software, and that a processof change management is an essential factor in getting these systemsaccepted. It appears to me, however, that most of the research on ITEMinnovation (Fung 1997; Telem and Barta 1997) does not attempt to relatethis back to the established models and theories that are applied toinnovation in business, but I believe that there may be value in doing so.

In an attempt to explore the usefulness of innovation theory to ITEMimplementation I suggest an attempt at its application to the followingresearch agenda:

Why do national or local education authorities adopt (or chose not toadopt) ITEM?

Does the initiative come from national or regional governmentswanting to make schools more accountable? (Tatnall 1995).Is the situation in other countries taken into account?Is what is happening in business organisations taken into account?To what extent does innovation theory explain the spread of ITEMin school systems around the world? Which theory best explainsthis?

206 Arthur Tatnall

In a centralised system, if an education authority has adopted ITEM(and forced its schools to adopt) to what extent is this infused intoindividual schools?

What variation occurs in levels of use and infusion?Does innovation theory help to explain this? Which theory explainsthis best?

In a decentralised system, why do individual schools choose to adoptor not to adopt?

What variation occurs in levels of use and infusion?To what extent does innovation theory provide a plausibleexplanation?Which theory offers the best explanation?

7 CONCLUSION

While some schools are forced by central education authorities toimplement ITEM systems, many have to make a choice in either adopting ornot adopting these systems. In this paper I have outlined two theories oftechnological innovation, and suggested some research questions that shouldbe investigated.

In a research project such as an investigation of the adoption of ITEM inschools, a researcher who concentrated on the technology as the drivingforce, or one who ignored the affects of the technology and focus only on thehuman and social interactions involved would, in my view, produce a veryunbalanced account. In socio-technical situations like this where thecontributions of both human and non-human actors are equally important, anapproach like that offered by innovation translation from actor-networktheory has, I contend, much to offer. I would like to see ITEM researchersadopt a research agenda to investigate why some schools implement andinfuse ITEM systems more effectively than others, and whether this differsin countries around the world.

8 REFERENCES

Berlyne, D. E. (1962). “Uncertainty and Epistemic Curiosity.” British Journal of Psychology53: 27-34.

Callon, M. (1986). Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of theScallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay. Power, Action & Belief. A New Sociology ofKnowledge? Law, J. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul: 196-229.

Callon, M. (1987). Society in the Making: The Study of Technology as a Tool forSociological Analysis. The Social Construction of Technological Systems. Bijker, W. E.,Hughes T. P. and Pinch T. P. Cambridge, Ma., The MIT Press: 85-103.


Dutch, R. A., Ed. (1962). Roget’s Thesaurus. London, Longman.Fung, A. C. W. (1997). Managing Change in ‘ITEM’. Information Technology in Educational

Management for the Schools of the Future. Fung, A. C. W., Visscher A. J., Barta B. Z. andTeather D. C. B. London, Chapman & Hall: 37-45.

Grint, K. and Woolgar, S. (1997). The Machine at Work - Technology, Work andOrganisation. Cambridge, Polity Press.

Latour, B. (1986). The Powers of Association. Power, Action and Belief. A new sociology ofknowledge? Sociological Review monograph 32. Law, J. London, Routledge & KeganPaul: 264-280.

Latour, B. (1996). Aramis or the Love of Technology. Cambridge, Ma, Harvard Uni Press.Law, J. (1986). The Heterogeneity of Texts. Mapping the Dynamics of Science and

Technology. Callon, M., Law J. and Rip A. UK, Macmillan Press: 67-83.Law, J., Ed. (1991). A Sociology of Monsters. Essays on power, technology and domination.

London, Routledge.Linderoth, H. C. J. (1997). Information Technology Infusion - Beyond Information

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Future Directions in ITEM Research

Arthur Tatnall and Bill Daveywith Omponoye Kereteletse, Javier Osorio, Tuulikki Paturi and Adrie Visscher

Abstract: A good deal of ITEM research has been undertaken and reported over the tenyears since IFIP WG 3.7 first met. It now appears that use of ICT is becomingmature in educational management in developed countries. The same is not yettrue, however, of developing countries and further research is needed toidentify problems faced by these countries. Much past research in schoolimplementations of ITEM systems has made use of the Visscher model, butthe group thought that this model now needed some updating. This paperoutlines these issues and points to several future directions for ITEM research.

Key words: Educational management, information technology, research.

1 INTRODUCTION

Over the ten years that the ITEM working group has been meeting sincethe Jerusalem conference a good deal of ITEM research has been undertakenand reported. This paper outlines what the above focus group saw as usefulfuture directions for ITEM research. It begins with an outline of recentlyreported ITEM research, and research directions identified in this.

It appears that the use of information and communications technologies(ICT) is becoming mature in educational management, and that what is nowrequired is the identification of what is ‘good management in education’:case studies of lighthouse schools and educational managers. Another area ofinterest identified by the group was the implementation of ITEM systems indeveloping countries, and whether cross-cultural factors are of significance.ITEM systems have been implemented in educational institutions of alltypes, and research can usefully be undertaken for each of the following:

Government primary schools.Government secondary schools.

210 Arthur Tatnall and Bill Davey

Non-government (independent) schools.Universities and other institutes of higher education.Central education systems vs. decentralized education systems.Developing vs. developed countries.

Visscher’s model (1995) for the implementation of ITEM systems inschools has been referenced by a number of papers over the years, but thegroup felt that it was now time to attempt an explanation of these results inan attempt to move towards cause and effect. Another identified avenue offuture research relates to the adoption of ITEM systems: to what degree arethey actually used and infused into individual schools? Also, what can welearn from business management practice in the use of computers? Theremainder of this paper explores these issues and outlines an ITEM researchagenda for the future.

2 PREVIOUS ITEM RESEARCH

A good deal of ITEM research has already been done, particularly asrelated to the use of ITEM systems in schools. Application of the Visschermodel (Visscher 1995) to ITEM implementations in schools has been animportant direction here. Recent research in use of ICT in educationalmanagement includes a number of strong themes. These include:

Use of models to determine the factors of successful use ofinformation systems (Fung 1995), (Fung and Visscher 2001),(Visscher 2001), (Visscher, Wild, Smith and Newton 2003),(O’Mahony 2000), (Stevenson 1997), (Visscher and Bloeman 1999).The factors involved in ICT in schools in developing countries(Aguti 2002), (Bisaso 2003), (Kereteletswe and Selwood 2003),(Riggs 1964).The ICT support needs of school managers (Haughey 2003),(Fulmer and Frank 1997), (Tatnall and Davey 1995).Change management strategies for implementing ICT in schoolmanagement (O’Mahony 2002), (Selwood, Smith and Wisehart2000).Applications of adoption models to uptake of ICT in schoolmanagement (Cox, Preston and Cox 1999), (Mumtaz 2000), (Fung1997).Strategies for developing and extending information systems ineducational management (Lawrence Shah and Golder 1997),(Tatnall 2001), (Kirkman 2000), (Smith and Wild 2001)

Future Directions in ITEM Research 211

Evaluation of the effects of ICT system use by managers (Newtonand Visscher 2003), (Visscher 1995), (Tatnall 1995), (Tatnall andPitman 2003), (Telem and Barta 1997).Interactions between web based educational delivery systems andnew management requirements (Baker 2003), (Alavi 1994), (Althaus1997), (Webster and Hackley 1997), (Song Singleton and Hill2004), (Okamoto 2001), (Okamoto, Cristea and Kayama 2000),(Kayama and Okamoto 2002).Quality requirements for the use of ICT in educational management(Roffe 2002).Issues relating to primary schools.Issues relating to teacher education.Special issues relating to Universities (Bates 2000), (Davey andTatnall 2003), (Lieblein 2000), (McGorry 2003), (Pond 2001).

3 DEVELOPING NATIONS: IMPLEMENTATION ANDUSE OF ITEM SYSTEMS IN SCHOOLS

Most developed countries now have in place some form of ITEM systemfor use in school education, and there was discussion on how developingcountries might be able to benefit from the collected experience of thesecountries. The basic research question asked was: “What should aneducational administrator in a developing country be advised to do next inrelation to implementation of ITEM systems?”

One important issue that should be researched, for each country, concernsthe alignment of information and communications technologies with thebusiness directions determined by the Ministry of Education, and whatprocesses are available for determining this alignment. This could beinformed by research into what is best practice in determining ITEMpriorities in other countries, and what are the methods best suited to avoidingproducing systems that will not meet the needs of all their potential users.The hope is that this research will point towards a determination ofimplementation strategies that are best suited to developing countries.

Another interesting research question identified was: how doesgovernment structure influence the direction of ITEM development? Relatedto this are issues of centralized versus decentralized education systems andhow these structures affect the development and implementation of ITEMsystems for schools. In recent years most developed countries studied havemoved towards, or are moving towards, decentralized education systems. Asmany developing countries have at present retained more centralized systemswe might question how decisions get made in such highly centralized


government structures. A research question might then be framed in relationto the degree of centralization and how this affects implementation of ITEMsystems.

4 UNIVERSITY VS SCHOOL ITEM SYSTEMS

Although much ITEM research in the past has related to schooleducation, an increasing amount of research on university (and other higherand further education) ITEM systems has now been embarked on bymembers of the ITEM working group. To link research in these areas, thefirst research question we should ask is: how do university and school ITEMsystems differ? The answer to this question might seem obvious, and someaspects of it are, but the important issue is one of identifying how, orwhether, ITEM research on school-based systems can be related to ITEMresearch on university systems. Are there any common issues relating toboth types of ITEM system? Are there any common problems? If the answerto these questions is found to be ‘no’, then these will have to proceed as tworelated but independent lines of research. On the other hand if the answer is‘yes’ then the challenge will be to make use of some of the school-basedresearch in investigating university ITEM systems.

Little has been written in case study form about university ITEM systemseither. A first step in researching these systems will be to ask questions like:what is the experience? Are these systems typically developed on-site by theuniversity? How many are vendor supplied? Are vendor solutions inevitablyflawed? How much do the administrative processes of an individualinstitution affect their ITEM needs?

Another research question that some of the group members have beenrecently researching is: are any of these ITEM systems designed to assistteaching and learning as well as providing administrative data? Preliminaryresearch suggests that mainly they are designed only for administrative use,and it seems that there is a missed opportunity here to make better use ofdata that has been already collected. Further research is needed on this topic.

5 IMPROVEMENTS TO THE VISSCHER MODEL

The group noted that the Visscher model (1995) has been used by anumber of researchers as a starting point for conceptualizing the design andimplementation of ITEM systems. Members of the group, however, thoughtthat further development of the model was needed to improve its usefulness.The model has identified correlations between factors and use, and these can


be used as starting points to investigate more detail for further developingthe model. Other suggested improvements to the model include:

Training qualities: how can the model be improved to consider theeffectiveness of different strategies for training?What change management strategies are best suited to the educationenvironments?What are the components needed to provide local support of ITEMsystems?A number of support strategies are available: central call centre, localsupport, etc. Which of these is the most effective?

6 ADOPTION AND INFUSION OF ITEM SYSTEMS

Purchasing and installing an ITEM system is of little value to aneducational institution if this system is not used to the full. This raises theissue of infusion or level of use. If an information system has become anindispensable part of an organization’s operations then it is said to be highlyinfused into that organization. Research is needed to find out in whichcountries ITEM systems are highly infused into schools, and in which theyare merely peripheral to daily operations.

Adoption of an ICT into any organisation implies not just its purchaseand installation, but also its use. The best way to frame research on ITEMadoption appears to be by making use of innovation theory as these systemsmust be seen as innovations. One interesting line of research could involveseeing how different groups make use of their ITEM systems, and the factorsthat influenced them to choose these uses.

7 OTHER ITEM RESEARCH QUESTIONS

A number of other ITEM research questions were also identified fromacross a range of topics. Firstly, in relation to cross-cultural issues:

What methods are available to tackle cross-cultural research in ITEMsystems?How do we identify cultural vs. global factors in ITEM adoption?Comparison of geographically similar societies.

Comments were made on the issue of IT managers in schools, and theirbackgrounds – some are teachers with some time-release for doing this jobwhile others are ICT professionals who bring quite a different outlook. Onequestion here is: are school ICT managers going to be taken from the pool ofteachers in the future? What steps should be taken by management to


provide the best support? How should we assess the performance ofeducational management? Along similar lines, is there a change in the natureof ICT support staff to handle ITEM systems?

Another set of question are: do ITEM systems add value and how do wemeasure their value and quality? Do we use measures of return oninvestment (ROI), efficiency and effectiveness, the school being better ableto meet its aims, or resulting in better decision making? What are the usesfor information at a high level of educational management? In somecountries, educational managers use system information to rank teachers andto provide rewards for staff. A framework to set out these measures needs tobe developed.

Regarding ITEM development, research could be undertaken to find outif development size matters and the best ways of evaluating the potential ofvendor ITEM systems (particularly for university-level ITEM). Are theneeds of users being sufficiently considered? Are these systems achieving allthat is possible, and what is going to make them better? It was noted that inmany cases, more important than money and culture is the political will toimplement these systems.

8 CONCLUSIONS: THE NEXT STEP

In summary, we need to look at previous ITEM research to see how wecan make use of this for planning future research. The Visscher model hasbeen useful in the past but now needs to be adapted to meet changingrequirements. Cross-cultural factors will be a fruitful area of future researchas will the implementation of ITEM systems in developing countries. SeeingITEM systems as innovations, and investigating their adoption and use usinginnovation theory is another important research direction.

We still, however, do not know enough about what is actually being donein relation to use of ITEM in educational institutions. What is best practice?What constitutes good use of ITEM systems? What are the flagship uses ofcomputers in educational management at the school principal level? Acombination of qualitative and quantitative research approaches is called for.We need to identify lighthouse examples of the use of computers ineducational management and also example of good managers who use thistechnology.


9 REFERENCES

Aguti, J.N. (2002). Facing up the challenge of UPE in Uganda through Distance TeacherEducation programmes. Paper presented at Pan Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning:Open Learning: Transforming Education for development. Durban, South Africa.

Alavi, M. (1994). Computer–mediated collaborative learning: An empirical evaluation. MISQuarterly, 18(2), 159–174.

Althaus, S. (1997). Computer-mediated communication in the university classroom: Anexperiment in on-line discussions. Communication Education, 46, 158 – 174.

Baker, R. (2003), A Framework for Design and Evaluation of Internet-Based Distancelearning Courses: Phase One – Framework Justification, Design and Evaluation, OnlineJournal of Distance Learning Administration, VI(11). Retrieved September 15, 2003 fromhttp://www.westga.edu/%7Edistance/ojdla/summer62/summer62.html

Bates, A. W. (2000). Managing technological change: Strategies for college and universityleaders. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Bisaso, R. (2003). Computerised School Information Systems Usage in the Administrationand Management of Secondary Schools in Uganda: An Exploratory Study, University ofTwente, Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, The Netherlands.

Cox, M., Preston, C. and Cox, K (1999,), What factors support or prevent teachers from usingICT in their classrooms? Paper presented at the British Educational Research AssociationAnnual Conference, University of Sussex, Brighton, November 1999.

Davey, B. and Tatnall, A. (2003). Involving the Academic: A Test for Effective UniversityITEM Systems. Management of Education in the Information Age: The Role of ICT.Selwood, I., Fung, A. C. W. and O’Mahony, C. D. Assinippi Park, Massachusetts, KluwerAcademic Publishers / IFIP: 83-92.

Fulmer, C. L. and Frank, F. P. (1997). Developing Information Systems for Schools of theFuture. Information Technology in Educational Management for the Schools of the Future.Fung, A. C. W., Visscher, A. J., Barta, B. Z. and Teather, D. C. B. London, Chapman &Hall/IFIP: 122-130.

Fung, A. C. W. (1997). Managing Change in ‘ITEM’. Information Technology in EducationalManagement for the Schools of the Future. Fung, A. C. W., Visscher A. J., Barta B. Z. andTeather D. C. B. London, Chapman & Hall: 37-45.

Fung, A.C.W. (1995). Managing change in “ITEM”. In Barta, B.Z., Telem, M., & Gev, Y.(Eds.)(1995). Information technology in educational management (pp. 37-46). London:Chapman & Hall.

Fung, A. C. W. and Visscher, A. J. (2001). A Holistic View of SISs as an Innovation, and theFactors Determining Success. Information Technology in Educational Management.Visscher, A. J., Wild, P. and Fung, A. C. W. Dordrecht, The Netherlands, KluwerAcademic Publishers: 79-95.

Haughey, M. (2003). The Impact of ICT on the work of the principal. In Selwood, I.D, Fung,A.C.W., & O’Mahoney C.D. (Eds.) Management of Education in the Information Age.The Role of ICT. (Pp 63-81). London: Chapman & Hall

Kayama M. & Okamoto T. (2002) “Collaborative learning support in the internet learningspace: a platform for a learning environment and knowledge management in theeducational context”, International Journal of Industry and Higher Education, Vol.16,No.4, pp.249-pp.259.

Kereteletswe O.C. and Selwood I.D. (2003). The Implementation of Information Technologyin Educational Management in Botswana in Selwood, I.D., Fung, A.C.W., & O’MahonyC. (Eds) Management of Education in the Information Age - The Role of ICT. Boston:Kluwer.


Kirkman, C., (2000), “A model for the effective management of information andcommunications technology development in schools derived from six contrasting casestudies”, Journal of IT for Teacher Education (JITTE), V 9, No 1, 2000.

Lawrence, D. R., Shah, H. U. and Golder, P. A. (1997). Business Users and the InformationSystems Development Process. The Place of Information Technology in Management andBusiness Education. Barta, B. Z., Tatnall A. and Juliff P. London, IFIP / Chapman & Hall:118-127.

Lieblein, E. (2000). Critical factors for successful delivery of online programs. The Internetand Higher Education, 3 (3), 161-174.

McGorry, S. Y. (2003). Measuring quality in online programs. The Internet and HigherEducation, 6 (2), 159-177.

Mumtaz, S (2000), “Factors affecting teachers use of information and communicationstechnology: a review of the literature”, Journal of Information Technology for TeacherEducation, 9, 3, 2000.

Newton, L R and Visscher (2003) ‘Management Systems in the Classroom.’ In Selwood, I.D.,Fung, A.C.W. and O’Mahony, C. D. Management of Education in the Information Age-The Role of ICT. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

O’Mahony, C.D. (2002), Managing ICT Access and Training for Educators: A Case Study,Proceedings: Information Technology for Educational Management (ITEM2002conference), Helsinki (Forthcoming).

O’Mahony, C.D., (2000), The evolution and evaluation of information systems in NSWSecondary schools in the 1990s: the impact of values on information systems. PhD Thesis(unpublished): Sydney: Macquarie University.

Okamoto, T. (2001). The Distance Ecological Model to Support Self/Collaborative Learningin the Internet Environment. Institutional Improvement through Information Technologyin Educational Management. Nolan, P. Dordrecht, The Netherlands, Kluwer AcademicPublishers: 21-30.

Okamoto, T., Cristea, A.I. and Kayama, M. (2000) “Towards Intelligent Media-OrientedDistance Learning and Education Environments”, Proceedings of ICCE2000.

Pond, W. K. (2001). Twenty-first century education and training. Implications for qualityassurance. The Internet and Higher Education, 4 (3-4), 185-192.

Riggs Fred, W. (1964) Administration in Developing Countries: The Theory of PrismaticSociety. Boston: Houghton

Roffe, I. (2002). E-learning: engagement, enhancement and execution. Quality Assurance inEducation, 10(1), 40-50.

Selwood, I., Smith, D., Wishart, J., (2001). Supporting UK teachers through the National Gridfor Learning in Nolan, P., Fung, A.C.W., & Brown, M.A. (Eds), Pathways to InstitutionalImprovement with Information Technology in Educational Management, p 159-171.Boston: Kluwer.

Smith, D. and Wild, P. (2001). The Future of School Information Systems. InformationTechnology in Educational Management. Visscher, A. J., Wild P. and Fung A. C. W.Dordrecht, The Netherlands, Kluwer Academic Publishers: 137-160.

Song, L., Singleton, E. S., Hill, J. R. & Koh, M. H. (2004). Improving online learning: studentperceptions of useful and challenging characteristics. The Internet and Higher Education, 7(1), 59-70.

Stevenson, R., (1997), Information and Communications Technology in UK Schools: anindependent inquiry (The Stevenson Report).

Telem, M. and Barta, B. Z. (1997). Information Technology Assimilation in Schools: ATheoretical and Practical Framework. Information Technology in Educational


Management for the Schools of the Future. Fung, A. C. W., Visscher A. J., Barta B. Z. andTeather D. C. B. London, Chapman & Hall: 9-14.

Tatnall, A. (1995). Information Technology and the Management of Victorian Schools -Providing Flexibility or Enabling Better Central Control? Information Technology inEducational Management. Barta, B. Z., Telem, M. and Gev, Y. London, Chapman & Hall:99-108.

Tatnall, A. (2001). Design Strategies. Information Technology in Educational Management:Synthesis of Experience, Research and Future Perspectives on Computer-Assisted SchoolInformation Systems. Visscher, A. J., Wild, P. and Fung, A. C. W. Dordrecht, TheNetherlands, Kluwer Academic Publishers: 97-113.

Tatnall, A. and Davey, B. (1995). Executive Information Systems in School Management: aResearch Perspective. World Conference on Computers in Education VI. WCCE’95.Liberating the Learner. Tinsley, J. D. and van Weert, T. J. London, IFIP / Chapman &Hall: 579-588.

Tatnall, A. and Pitman, A. (2003). Information Technology and Control in EducationalManagement. Management of Education in the Information Age: The Role of ICT.Selwood, I., Fung, A. C. W. and O’Mahony, C. D. Assinippi Park, Massachusetts, KluwerAcademic Publishers / IFIP: 73-82.

Visscher, A. J. (1995). Computer Assisted School Administration and Management: WhereAre We and Where Should We Go? Information Technology in Educational Management.Barta, B.-Z., Telem, M. and Gev, Y. London, Chapman & Hall: 15-26.

Visscher A., Wild P., Smith D. and Newton L. (2003) Evaluation of the implementation, useand effects of a computerised management information system in English secondaryschools. British Journal of Educational Technology, June, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 357-366(10)

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Visscher, A.J. (1995). Computer assisted school administration and management: where arewe and where are we going? In Barta, B.Z., Telem, M. & Gev, Y. (Eds.) (1995).Information technology in educational management. London: Chapman & Hall.

Visscher, A.J. (2001). Computer-Assisted School Information Systems: the concepts,intended benefits, and stages of development. In Visscher, A.J., Wild, P. and Fung,A.C.W. (Eds.)(2001). Information Technology in Educational Management: Synthesis ofExperience, Research and Future Perspectives on Computer-Assisted School InformationSystems. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

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Managing Distance and Lifelong Learning

Connie L. Fulmerwith Alex Fung, Ragton Mazhani, Jorge Rodriguez, Toshio Okamoto, Brian Samways,

Geoff Sandy and Barbara Tatnall.

1 INTRODUCTION

The Managing Distance and Lifelong Learning Working Group focusedfirst on how to tackle our task. The group discussed possible strategies forworking on the topic and possible outcomes of each. We spent some timedebating the meaning of the terms included in our charge. As we interactedwith each other about our topic the following four questions emerged andguided the remainder of our conversation.

Who do we think will manage distance and lifelong learning?What do we mean by the terms distance and lifelong learning andhow are they related?Is there a model or framework that would guide or support ourdiscussion?What contribution can our discussion group make to this topic?

1.2.

3.

4.

2 WHO WILL MANAGE?

The working group quickly agreed that the management of distance andlifelong learning would depend on the conceptual perspective in play. Is theview one of the lone ranger (Bates, 2000) or that of the thousand flowers(Collis, 1999). Van Der Klink and Jochems (2004) talk about three levels ofmanagement: organizational, curricular, and individual course. However,our working group took a wider perspective. In one instance, an individualwould be the best choice for managing his or her distance or lifelonglearning activities. In another, while a department or working group mightselect an individual to manage the design, implementation, and delivery of

220 Connie L. Fulmer

distance or lifelong learning, the task is conducted on behalf of a smallcollection of individuals. The organizational level would include more thanone working group and require a more complex management strategy. Thosewho write about this at a public administration level, managing distance andlifelong learning would need to be constructed at the community level, quitepossibly linking public and private sectors. At a much larger level, a societyor a country would need to plan how this management function would bestbe conceptualized. Therefore, the answer to the question, who will do themanaging depends on the perspective of those asking the question.

3 WHAT DO WE MEAN BY ‘DISTANCE’ AND‘LIFELONG’ LEARNING AND ARE THEYRELATED?

As the working group moved to the task of defining the terms of ourcharge, we struggled with the term distance learning and quite naturallywanted to change it to e-learning. We immediately tried to distinguishbetween face-to-face, synchronous and asynchronous, and online learning,only to realize that online learning could actually be face-to-face but at adistance.

As for lifelong learning, the working group discussed the issue that theterm was like a slogan, a frame of mind about learning, its context, andduration for human beings. For leaders of many countries, the term lifelonglearning represents a kind of cultural strategy for improving the humancondition. Lifelong learning is a much broader term than distance learningand could quite possibly be an umbrella term. Some members of the workinggroup made excellent arguments for changing the term to lifelong education(LLE). To be sure, the integration of the terms ‘distance’ and ‘lifelonglearning’ illustrate the mediating effect to be experienced by both. Distancelearning enhances the process of lifelong learning or education whilelifelong learning readily embraces the opportunities for distance or onlinelearning opportunities.

4 IS THERE A ‘MODEL’ OR ‘FRAMEWORK’ THATWOULD GUIDE OR SUPPORT OUR DISCUSSION?

The working group discussed several models that might guide our work.Some focused on instructional design while others focused on assessment.However, the charge to our working group was about management, notnecessarily about design or assessment. So a model of leadership might be

Managing Distance and Lifelong Learning 221

more productive to guide our work. As the group continued to work, wefound that the distributed leadership framework (Spillane, Diamond, &Halverson, 2002; Gronn, 2002) was most useful in organizing our work. Themodel can be simplified and conceptualized in the following terms: Actors,tools or artifacts, goals, rules, and both micro and macro tasks. Takentogether and operating in an integrated fashion they create or exist within acommunity of practice. Each component is described below:

Figure 1.Distributed leadership for managing distance and lifelong learning.

ACTORS: Leadership is often distributed across multiple leaders:principals, assistant principals, curriculum specialists, reading or Title Iteachers, and classroom teachers, ICT specialists, and others. Jochems, VanMerriënboer, and Koper (2004 p.xii) include additional players: Instructionaldesigners developers of course materials, educational technologists,consultants, training department managers, faculty managers, coursedirectors, and teachers and trainers at the post, and students in educationalsciences interested in including distance or lifelong learning into thematerials.

TOOLS & ARTIFACTS: Rather than treating material artifacts, tools,(e.g. curricular frameworks, teacher observation protocols) andorganizational structures as backdrop for leaders’ practice, we see them asdefining components of that practice. The structure of the technology andthe design of the learning environments do indeed impact the levels ofefficiency and effectiveness of learning outcomes. In their work, VanMerrienboër, Bastiaens, and Hoogveld (2004) argue that leaders shouldalways ask if current and technological developments enable innovativeinstructional methods necessary to make learning more effective, efficientand appealing.

GOALS: Goals represent the intentions of the individual or learninggroup and as such become the focus of purposeful activity and learning.


Krischner, Strijbnos, and Kreijns (2004) outline six design principles as wellas guidelines for task ownership, task character, and task control as goals forwell designed online learning environments. Their underlying assumption isthat goals should view learners as self-sufficient and in control of their ownlearning. Other authors provide different goals. Van Der Klink and Jochems(2004) describe three types of goals. The first is substitution where the newway replaces the traditional. The second is innovation where the currentpedagogical and managerial perspective is rethought. Their final type istransformation, where radical change describes the outcome. The point weare making is that no matter the goal or the quest to achieve it, the goalshould be distributed through the system.

RULES: These are criteria under which the community of practice tendto operate or the cultural view of the work of the group. They are created,modified, and policed by the group.

TASKS (Macro & Micro): A task perspective provides a framework foranalyzing practice that enables us to attend to the daily work of schoolleadership without losing sight of the big picture. Macro tasks, or large scaleorganizational tasks involve constructing and selling an instructional visionof distance and life-long learning; building norms of trust, collaboration,supporting teacher (and others) development and training; monitoringinstruction and innovation. Micro tasks or the day-to-day work involvescreating opportunities for teachers to work together; creating in-serviceopportunities for teachers; completing classroom observations;distinguishing formative from summative observations.

In a community of practice focused on distance and lifelong learning, thework related to the managing of such can be mediated and informed by eachelement of the distributed model described above.

5 RECOMMENDATIONS FROM WORKING GROUP

In the end, our working group generated the following list ofrecommendations from our work on managing distance and lifelonglearning. Listed below is our collective contribution.

Create and foster learning environments in which people feelmotivated to learn.Guard against decisions based on economy at the cost of betterlearning systems.Distribute the management of distance and life long learning.Expect learning to take many different paths.Provide multiple options, strategies, venues, and opportunities forlearning.

Managing Distance and Lifelong Learning 223

Create entrance options for any consumer to enter learningopportunities at appropriate levels for optimal learning.Ensure that technology helps to individualize instruction for learnersand to provide personal preference.Provide opportunities for self-assessment of learning or diagnosticsfor helping consumers select appropriate learning activities.The new goal is to manage learning (coach) and not just to providecontent.Avoid being trapped in the old paradigm of one teacher to a group ofstudents but rather seek to help individuals or groups search forinformation or new content to be learned. Many times traditionallearning modes crush a student’s spirit of learning.Foster students taking responsibility for their own learning.Create activities, policies, practices that empower parents to play astronger role in the education of their own children.Focus on the ICT side and track, record, and enhance the quality oflearning activities.Base all decisions and activities on a strong ethical foundation.

6 REFERENCES

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